Mia Weathers-Fowler Capstone

Since the end of junior year I have been really intrigued by the way that high school and teenagers are portrayed in media, especially in movies with teens as the target audience. Last year when I saw DUFF, a teen movie about the Designated Ugly Fat Friend, I decided to make my capstone about the realities of high school, specifically for senior year. In the beginning I set out to make a documentary style film. That idea has since changed to a scripted short film, but the core ideas are still the same. I wanted to explore the key themes of senior year that never get talked about in the movies; stress, relationships, friendships, and saying goodbye. Senior year is hard. In real life friendships sometimes fall apart, relationships have to come to an end as we all part for college, and the immense stress to get into college and start living your own life is almost crippling. I have attached a collection of the videos and interviews I originally collected for the documentary as they will still appear in the final product. I also attached the screenplay of the short film (I'm still putting the final editing touches on it). This year I had the pleasure of working with Philly filmmakers and actors to try to make my vision come true. Hopefully my film can paint a brief picture of some of the real hurdles and joys students will face during senior year!

Annotated Bibliography: 

Screenplay: 


Wilson Biggs Capstone

Abstract

Coming up with a capstone was fairly easily. It was practically handed right to me. My friend Nebil told me that Zack was planning to do a house band" for his capstone. I saw this as the perfect oppurtunity - I would work with his band to get a few songs recorded and published onto CD for my capstone! Zack assented, so we began!

Over the course of the year, me and Zack's band, which, in the end, included Nebil Ibrahim (senior, bass), Kia DaSilva (junior, piano + vocals), and Adnan (senior, guitar; used to go to SLA), worked together to practice three songs to being able to record them. It really helped to have a stepfather, Ted, who runs his own recording studio, that could be my mentor and give me a space to use.

Once we had the songs down, we spent two evenings at Ted's recording studio recording the songs. He guided us through the recording process, leaving me with studio quality tracks for me to mix. Then, through May, I mixed the three songs, using tips from Ted and the band and guides I found online to help me get a good end result. I then used Kunaki to publish the album to CD. But the process is ongoing! We are planning to tag along to the end of the Music Club concert and sell CDs! All of the profits from the CDs are going to SLA to help them get new equipment for the music room.


http://302b.bandcamp.com/


Annotated Bibliography

Audio Animals Ltd. "How To Pan Live Drums Tutorial." Audio Animals. Audio Animals Ltd., 5 Apr. 2014. Web.


While this source isn’t the most polished and professional looking visually, the content is what counts. The graphics in the tutorial were immensely helpful, as they gave me a starting point for panning the drums in the songs, which helped them sound much more realistic and less cramped. I referenced it constantly when mixing the drums in the tracks.


This source is quite credible, as it was written by a group that runs not only the website it was posted on, but also a mixing and mastering house, recording studio, and record label. That shows how much experience with the subject the writers had when writing the tutorial.




"Mixing Top and Bottom Snare." /r/AudioEngineering. Reddit, 10 Apr. 2015. Web.


This source is a conglomeration of answers to a user’s question about mixing snare drums that have been recorded in two tracks: a top snare and a bottom snare. This is how the snare was recorded for our songs as well, and I was unsure what to do with them, so this helped a lot. There were a lot of ideas expressed in the responses, which gave me some ideas of my own. I ended up muting the bottom snare on all of the tracks, as it sounded better without it, but without the response by “aderra”, I would never have thought of just doing that.


This source is probably the least credible of all of my sources, as it is an open forum, but it is still credible, as there are many responses by professionals in the industry with experience with this subject.




Bandcamp. "Bandcamp for Artists." Bandcamp. Bandcamp, n.d. Web.


This source explained how I could use Bandcamp to host the album digitally and allow people to listen to it and download it whenever they pleased. I decided to use the site after reading this, and it has been very easy to use because of it. It also provided general information on how payment works on the site.


It is written by the site about the site. It’s as credible as can be.




Benediktsson, Björgvin. "A Powerful ‘n’ Punchy Guide to Mixing Your Drums." Audio Issues. Audio Issues, n.d. Web.


This source helped me immensely with mixing my drums, as I wasn’t sure how to make them sound at all decent when I first began to mix the songs. The kick drum sounded dull, things were kinda all over the place, and it sounded like crap. This guide really helped me fix these issues; I now know how to make the kick and toms sound punchy, and how to use compressors when mixing drums. It also helped me mix everything else, as I wasn’t sure how to use compressors beforehand, but it described them well enough that I knew how to use them for the rest of the song.


This source is credible as the author writes these articles professionally for amateur producers in home studios; I am part of that demographic. The website has also been mentioned in a number of professional music publications, which lends it more credibility.




Benediktsson, Björgvin. "7 Advanced Guitar Mixing Techniques for an Amazing Guitar Production." Audio Issues. Audio Issues, n.d. Web.


This source helped me a lot with mixing the guitars, played by Adnan throughout the EP. I had a hard time with them sounding very harsh and clashing a lot with the piano and vocals. While panning helped this somewhat, there were still problems. This article gave me a few ideas for improving the guitar mixing; the EQing at 800hz was immensely helpful, as was EQing the reverb.


This source is the same as the one directly above: “This source is credible as the author writes these articles professionally for amateur producers in home studios; I am part of that demographic. The website has also been mentioned in a number of professional music publications, which lends it more credibility.”




Fredv. "EQ Tips Cheat Sheet." Cheatography. Added Bytes Magento Development, 15 Nov. 2011. Web.


This source was incredibly helpful and useful. I wasn’t sure where to start or how to EQ tracks before I read this source, but reading it really helped. I used it as a reference for much of my mixing, allowing me to have a better sounding mix than I would have otherwise. It also helped me solve problems I was having with some of the tracks.


This was a very credible source as the writer was an audio professional and music enthusiast. It was also commented on by many amateurs and professionals alike for how helpful and accurate it was. It’s been given a 5 star average rating based on 19 people’s ratings, which is also a sign of how credible a source it is.




Gugulethu. "Advice On Mixing Piano Sounds." TalkinMusic. TalkinMusic.com, n.d. Web.


This source helped me mix the pianos on the album. Much of the EP focused on the piano, so it was important to make it sound as good as possible. I was having problems making the piano sound realistic and not cheap, and this source allowed me to fix that problem. It goes in depth, which is helpful as well.


This source is quite credible as the author is an audio professional; he writes articles like this all the time as well. His site is used very often by home producers for tips as well. These facts lend to its credibility.




Kunaki. "Kunaki Distribution Capabilities." Kunaki. Kunaki, n.d. Web.


Kunaki is a music publishing service that allows you to sell CDs cheaply. I have read about this service before and this page on the site described how it works and convinced me to use it. CDs can be bought in bulk from the site, as well, which is the plan for selling physical CDs; we will buy a number of CDs and sell them at a higher price to generate profit for SLA to use.


This source is credible as it is written by the company about the company. How much more credible than that can you get?




PSW Staff. "Tech Tip Of The Day: Using EQ To Conquer Hum - Pro Sound Web." ProSoundWeb. ProSoundWeb.com, 29 Sept. 2010. Web.


I was having problems with some hum in the bass tracks, which was noticeable after compression and effects were added to the drums. It was a bit annoying, and I needed a way to at least quiet the hum down. This source helped with that, as it outlined the best ways to remove the hum from the track.


This source is credible as it was published on a website catered specifically to audio professionals and was written by audio professionals. It was also “provided by” (read: the website received money from) Sweetwater, a professional audio company that is very well respected.




White, Paul. "Improving Your Stereo Mixing." Sound On Sound. SOS Publications Group, Oct. 2000. Web.


This source is about panning and using stereo to your advantage when mixing tracks. This helped me mix the album and pan more than just the drums well. I used panning very often on the album because of this, allowing me to separate sounds that would clash otherwise. It also makes the track sound wider and more realistic.


This source is very, very credible. It was originally published in Sound On Sound magazine in October 2000. Sound On Sound is a professional audio magazine that has been around for many years and is followed by many professionals. It is highly touted within the music production industry for its in depth articles.

Sandra Avery Monroe Capstone

Abstract:

Over the past 4 years, I feel like I haven’t really taken the time to get know each and every person at the school, and I still don’t know every person. This year, I wanted to make an effort to get to know new people and talk to them. I also wanted to show people who all of the different students at SLA  are and how they make the community the way it is now. SLA is such a diverse school in so many different ways. We have people from all different neighborhoods, cultures, races and ethnicities. There are also so many different people with different personalities that it made it very interesting to hear about them and then to put a face to those pictures.

With the help of Myrna Yousuf and Ms. Giknis, we created a blog where we interviewed students, teachers, and even a few visitors in the school. We wanted to get a chance to talk to them. The outcomes were different depending on who we talked to. We got some funny stories, some sad stories, some random stores. All of it put together created an awesome, diverse page. By myself, I created a magazine where I had a couple of people write poems and articles about being human and being a human of SLA. Myrna and I had the chance to collaborate with so many really interesting people to create a diverse experience and blog throughout our senior year of high school.

Here is the link for my magazine: http://joom.ag/9gYQ
Here is the link to our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/humansofsla/


Annotated Bibliography:

  1. Benaroya, Ana. Illustration Next: Contemporary Creative Collaboration. Thames & Hudson. Print. This source provided me with a couple of questions that could be used in interviews with different students. I selected this source because as I looked through it, I really liked the questions that they asked. There were about 6 questions that were asked to every artist in the book. I thought it was very interesting to see the responses that the interviewer would get. I wanted to know how the students at SLA would respond to those questions and how similar they were to the answers I was seeing in the book. I found this source useful because at times I was stuck with what to ask people and I stumbled upon this book and I really liked what I was seeing. One limitation to this book was that some of the questions couldn’t really be applied to the real world and many of them were too broad.


  1. Carrier, Nicole. "Four Ways To Get People's Attention Online." Forbes. Forbes Magazine. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. This information was helpful for what I am going to do with both the HumansofSLA pages and also the magazine that will be created. This was helpful because often times it is very difficult to get people to pay attention to what you want them to pay attention to. This gave me good pointers for that problem. I selected this because as soon as I saw the first suggestion, I knew that is what I wanted to do with this entire project and that it would have more great information. I think the only flaw with this site was that there wasn’t more information about how to catch attention.


  1. Isreal, Shel. "9 Tips on Conducting Great Interviews." Forbes. Forbes Magazine. Web. 10 Jan. 2016.As soon as I saw this source, I knew that it would be very helpful and very reliable. The source provided me with a lot of great tips and pointers on how to conduct an interview. There was information on what types of questions to ask, and information on how to make sure it was a comfortable and personable situation. I thought it was helpful to have all of this information on how to be successful when interviewing somebody, especially if it is somebody that I don’t know. I selected this source because it was one of the first and best sources I found when looking for information on conducting a successful interview.


  1. Kotter, John. "The Power Of Stories." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 12 Apr. 2006. Web. 20 Nov. 2015. This source was a very interesting read for me. This made me want to get more stories from people that were at my school and hear about what they have to say. I think that through doing this, I have learned so much about people. I have learned and changed from doing this project and that is what the article talks about. I used this source because it showed me how important this could be to me and the other people that are reading the stories. I like that this source showed what happened when people didn’t tell stories and how it wasn’t as effective. I also like how they showed what it was like when there were stories told in places instead of just people talking at you with a presentation.


  1. Kuhel, Beth. "The Secret to a Successful Interview: Great Storytelling." US News RSS. 17 Apr. 2014. Web. 04 Nov. 2015. I used this website because it gave me information on interviews but then it also gave me a lot of information on how to put that into storytelling. This website helped me think of what would be helpful to get a good interview started. This helped me generate questions, even if I didn’t know the person. I selected this source because I felt that when I was brainstorming how to create a good interview this helped me a lot. It made it easier for me to make it a very personal experience for me and for the person that is being interviewed. This source helped me create a good flow for my interviews.


  1. Parr, Ben. "7 Ways to Capture Someone's Attention." Harvard Business Review. 03 Mar. 2015. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. For one of the parts of my capstone, I am going to be creating an online magazine for people to look at and they will be able to submit different pieces for my magazine. This website was helpful because it helped me see what I can do to make the website more appealing to people who will be viewing it. I found this source useful because it was a good starting point on what I could do to make my website more attractive. I think that this source could have been a little more helpful if it had been more focused towards grabbing attention on a magazine.



  1. Resorts, Wynn. "The Power of Storytelling." The Power of Storytelling. Web. 01 Feb. 2016. This is an entire website that focuses on telling stories and how powerful they can be to people. This motivated me to find better questions, and I also liked to see how helpful stories could be to people. One part that I found particularly helpful was when they talked about how people use stories to make sense of different things that they have seen because of the lens that they look through. I liked this because I see this a lot when I am doing interviews, and it was interesting to see this in a business.

  2. Stanton, Brandon. Humans of New York: Stories. St. Martins, 2015. Print.My entire capstone was based off of this website and book. We saw this website and were very inspired to create our own version of it. It was helpful to have something so similar to base our work off of. We selected this source because it was very interesting and we liked the idea of implementing this into our own school. This source really laid out everything that we wanted to do. Even if ours wasn’t going to look the exact same way. Through this source, we could look at how the pictures were taken, and try and backtrack to see what types of questions were being asked to the people he was talking to.

  3. Wolfe, K., J. Carroll, and T. Bush. "Tips for a Successful Interview - 9.151 - Colorado State University Extension." Colorado State University Extension. Web. 15 Jan. 2016. This website was helpful for both conducting an interview and also being interviewed. I used it to give me information on this because at first, even though I knew how to do both of those, I needed the extra information just so that I could make sure I was being professional. The only flaw with this website was that since I didn’t know all of these people, I couldn’t always be prepared for the person. I wish they had pointers on what to do if you are interviewing somebody you don’t know.

  4. "Fun Photos: A Look at What Participants Bring to the Booth." StoryCorps. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. This website was very helpful because with this, I could see the types of pictures that I could take to really represent people. I had other websites like this, but I liked this one a lot because it was a similar type of thing to what I was doing. I think that a flaw with this was that with these they didn’t really have stories with the pictures so even though you saw an interesting picture of someone, you couldn’t really get a story about them. I did like this website as a whole though because they had a lot of different stories on them and that was the whole thing that they did on the website.

  5. "The Octoroon - The Broadview Anthology of British Literature." The Broadview Anthology of British Literature. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2016.

For one of the people that wrote an essay for me, they talked about this play, so I wanted to get some photos so that there was a visual of the play that was being talked about.

  1. "The Octoroon: A Play, in Four Acts." Louisiana Anthology. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2016.

This was another picture that I used that had to do with the play.

  1. Jacobs-Jenkins, Branden. "The Wilma Theater: An Octoroon [03/16/16]." The Wilma Theater: An Octoroon [03/16/16]. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2016.

This photo has to do with the more modern version of the play that was being talked about. The person that wrote about it, wrote about this version so I had a picture of this and also of the older version.

Claudia Bonitatibus' Capstone

Since the beginning of the year my capstone has taken many different forms. The original plan took the form of a book club focused around the Free Library of Philadelphia’s One Book, One Philadelphia program and organizing events outside of school, including composer Jennifer Higdon's opera based on Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain. I also incorporated a physical portion to act as a tangible representation of our interpretation of the text. Since my project involved leading a book group, a key component of my capstone was collaboration because I had to get the group members' input in order for the project to run smoothly. However, over the course of the year my capstone became less book club oriented and more project driven. I created this project by analyzing and illustrating quotes that the book club members picked from their reading. Each of these books represents a major theme of the book, such as resilience, mobility, and hope for the future. In creating the final product I had to do research to gain background knowledge of the historical setting and fully engage with the text. I also include a brief summary about the historical context because the historical setting of Cold Mountain plays a major role in the tone of the book and the fundamental questions that it presents to the reader. This was accompanied by a description of the major characters, which is critical in order to be able to comprehend and interpret the quotes that I go on to analyze later on in the project.

Brandon Yam Capstone

​For my capstone I decided to interview people in different professions in order to learn what they are like. Going in to college is scary enough, but declaring a major is even harder. I did not know what I wanted to major in and I still do not know what I want to do with my life. I wanted to create a guide for underclassmen that would give them a little insight into the professions that they are possibly looking into. Getting interviews with professions that are relevant today was hard. I could not secure interviews with people in high positions such as lawyers, but I was able to get lucky with a medical technician. A fair amount of my interviews had to deal with the arts which is not bad, but I do wish I had more variety. My partner (Jiwon Choi) and I worked on grabbing as many interviews as we can and we worked with what we had in the end. It was a tough process. There were a lot of emails and phone calls that went unanswered as well as time and effort. Unfortunately, I would not be able to set up an internship program with the individuals I met with (due to schedule conflicts and such). This is a setback for what I originally intended but I feel as though I needed more time/assistance to make it work. Despite the internship program, I am still very satisfied with my work. 

Website: 

Bibliography: 
Cahill, Paula. “Being an Artist.” Personal interview. 03 Feb. 2016
    Paula Cahill, a local artist in northeast Philadelphia, brought the world of art up close and personal. Being an artist is not only her hobby, but her occupation as well. She makes money off of commission from her works and doesn’t plan on stopping. She displayed numerous amounts of her work, all varying in size, color, theme, and style. She states that being an artist is hard, but definitely do-able. Her last words were “If you love what you do, it’ll all work out.” Paula Cahill’s interview will be used to create her individual profile on the website. There will be an in-depth profile of her along with actual footage of the interview itself. 

De Selincourt, Basil. 1907. “The Ethics of Passion”. International Journal of Ethics 17 (2). University of Chicago Press: 181–94.http://www.jstor.org/stable/2375843.
    Basil de Selincourt, an editor at the University of Chicago Press, wrote about the ethics of passion. Basil described the societal boundaries of passions and essentially, what was cut out to be a passion and what was not. Basil talks about how these societal norms is what limits people and if there is hope for a diverse future, people must venture further and test the “limits”. This will be used to create the description of the project itself on the website along with contributing to the foundation. This will be the underlying message before visiting the profiles of the interviewers. 

Gaskill, Monica. “Being a Researcher.” Personal interview. 18 Nov. 2015. 
    Monica Gaskill, a medical researcher at Abramson Research Center, gave an exclusive interview of her workspace and occupation. There were many machines and tools lying around, their purpose unknown until Monica explained. It was everything a person could expect it to look like documents, graphs, flasks, etc. She also gave an explanation on her current project with genes and her experiences in getting into the field. This source will be used as one of the many profiles created on the website. There will be a page for Monica individually explaining her occupation, answers to interview questions and gallery of pictures of workspace. 

Kelly, Darien. “Being a Musician.” Personal interview. 04 Feb. 2016 
    Darien Kelly. a freelance musician in central Philadelphia, takes music seriously. He takes on jobs from performances at local communities to performing with the Philadelphia orchestra. He composes his own music as well and is fluent in a variety of instruments ranging from the trumpet to tuba. He showcased his pieces with a sense of accomplishment. His most rewarding moment in his career as a musician thus far was when he traveled to Memphis and taught a group of kids. One of those kids wrote to him in an email months or years later expressing his/her gratitude and that they would be the first to attend college in their family and they wanted to pursue a degree in music education. This source will be used in creating Darien’s profile for the project. 

PALMER, GEORGE HERBERT. 1914. “WHAT IS A PROFESSION?”. The Journal of Education 80 (20 (2006)). Trustees of Boston University: 537–39.http://www.jstor.org/stable/42798386.
    George Palmer, a member of the Trustees of Boston University, talks about professions and the best way for them to thrive. For instance, he talks about teachers and how their salaries are not cut out for their living expenses. With the anxiety of not being able to pay bills, the teacher brings that into the classroom, thus minimizing his or her potential in teaching. He explains that in order for one to maximize their potential to the fullest, they have to be free of stress and negative energy. He tells how it’s hard to go out and do what you want to do in life due to the unstableness of it all. This source will be used as ground knowledge to enhance the website. 

MACDOWELL, LAUREL SEFTON. 2001. Renegade Lawyer: The Life of J.L. Cohen. University of Toronto Press.http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/9781442679214.
    Laurel Sefton Macdowell, the author of Renegade Lawyer: The Life of J.L. Cohen, talks about the life of an average lawyer back in the 1900s. Laurel gives insight of the workings, day to day life, troubles and upsides of the lawyer profession through the eyes of J.L. Cohen. Though not all lawyers have had the same experience as Mr. Cohen, the workload and procedures are no different. This source will be used to fill the space for the lawyer section since getting an interview with a lawyer could not be scheduled. This is not the only source being contributed to the section.  

McDonald, Steve, Nan Lin, and Dan Ao. 2009. “Networks of Opportunity: Gender, Race, and Job Leads”. Social Problems 56 (3). [Oxford University Press, Society for the Study of Social Problems]: 385–402. doi:10.1525/sp.2009.56.3.385.
    Steve McDonald, an editor for the Oxford University Press, Society for the Study of Social Problems, talks about a multitude of factors that affects your job and how you got there. He analyzes deeply into gender roles and race to grasp the essence of getting ahead in the field. McDonald reveals that white males have a significant lead in jobs as opposed to white women or even other minorities. It really makes one think about how this came to be.This source will be used in the closing statements of the website when addressing the issue of individuals being barred from their professions due to social problems such as this. 

MERCHANT, CAROLYN. 1918. “THE LURE OF OTHER PROFESSIONS”. The Journal of Education 87 (22 (2182)). Trustees of Boston University: 594–95. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42826961.
    Carolyn Merchant, a member of the Trustees of Boston University, talks similarly about occupations that are stuck in time and are underpaid, just like George Palmer. Carolyn mentions that people such as merchants and middlemen live soundly because financially, they are better off than a teacher, butcher, or candlemaker. As people in these professions struggle to make ends meet, it makes the professions that have no problem meeting their bills that much more enticing. She tackles the idea that professions that help build nations are paid less than those who put bricks together. This source will be used to summarize the rise and fall (financially) of certain jobs. 

Ross, Edward Alsworth. 1916. “The Making of the Professions”. International Journal of Ethics 27 (1). University of Chicago Press: 67–81. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2376957.
    Edward Ross, an editor at the University of Chicago Press, published a journal about “The Making of the Professions” where he explained exactly where these occupations stemmed from. He talks about the pathology, mentorship, and all of the inner workings of jobs in general. He even goes into the social aspects of jobs and how it can affect someone mentally and the world around them. This is a great source in building up the “base” to the capstone. It helps lay the foundation for the interviews to follow. With this text, it makes it easier to understand how others get into the professions they do along with the experiences and passion. 

Terkel, Studs. “Working” (1974)
    Steve Terkel takes career exploration to another level. He went out around the nation and interviewed people with different professions ranging from farmers to people in corporate America. Steve Terkel is certainly a jack-of-all-trades with this book. His interviews are very thorough and provide great insight to the lives of these people. The dialogue and writing has a sense of “rawness” to it as if the reader was right there. This source is great because this is what the project essentially is just in a different form. This will serve as the mentor text for future interviews to enhance the final product. 

Sergei Mass Capstone

When I came into SLA in September of 2012, I was the kid that was obsessed with Jordan's and would impatiently wait till 11 a.m. on a Thursday morning for the newest Supreme drop. Fast forward to now, I am no longer that kid that is obsessed with Jordan's, I am an entrepreneur that still impatiently waits for the Supreme drop. 

My original Capstone idea was to host the first Dodgeball Tournament for SLA, after a road of denial and stress, I had to accept the fact that it would not workout. I scrambled a little bit, but I grasped my motive for my capstone and what I came up with is an e-shop to buy, sell, and trade my sneakers and clothing. A little background on why I sold sneakers from the beginning was to be able to buy myself a pair of Yeezy's. When hitting the reality of the real world that college is extremely expensive, I had to save every penny  This e-shop would allow me to sell my sneakers and reach customers directly rather than dealing with a site that charges a fee. When developing my e-shop, I collaborated with colleagues to help out. Within days of launching my social media account and launching my e-shop, I had messages and emails galore of inquiries from buyers. The e-shop defiantly improved my sales as well as helped me save money for college. My e-shop is also a resource for others to learn from. I am fortunate that I have the opportunity that I can capitalize off of my passion. 

Below, you will see pictures of some of the products I sold as well as my e-shop and social media account. Enjoy!

Follow VSOP Shop on Instagram @veryspecialoldpreserve

or

Check out the site at http://veryspecialoldpreserveshoes.weebly.com/


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Dylan McKeon Capstone

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Virtual Reality is a idea that is currently being explored deeper to bring immersion to video games and simulations. However how can this be applied to a learning environment?  For my Capstone I worked on a virtual simulation of our solar system that can be viewed with the Oculus Rift. This is part of Project Stargazer, my ILP for the past two years where the group has worked with making an representation of the solar system with VR for The Franklin Institute.

I started out working on the design of the simulation in the Unreal Engine creating the cockpit and menu displays of the spaceship that would serve as our HUD. However as the only one in the group with knowledge of Unreal, I ended up also working on the code. During the year I finished the design of the spaceship, tried to get the ship to move, made a planet map for each in the solar system complete with HUD’s showing information on the planet and made starry background. However I was never able to finish the coding and could not get the ship to move even after a month of troubleshooting and consulting with Unreal coders. However I taught several of the sophomores in the project how to use Unreal and will continue to help out throughout the summer.

During this project I learned about the benefits of VR for education with it’s added immersion allowing for greater focus and more effective visuals.


Link to Levels (must be placed in Unreal Engine to Work) https://drive.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/folderview?id=0B2hdSK9AO85-N3NNc1BjMERQRXc&usp=sharing

For More information about Project Stargazer: http://projectstargazer.weebly.com/

For images of the simulation and time at Educon are below

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Biblography

Antonio Gonçalves Vilas Boas, Yuri. "Overview of Virtual Reality Technologies." (n.d.): n. pag. Final Paper. University of Southampton. Web. 4 Feb. 2016. http://static1.squarespace.com/static/537bd8c9e4b0c89881877356/t/5383bc16e4b0bc0d91a758a6/1401142294892/yavb1g12_25879847_finalpaper.pdf

This article is an overview of VR showing its history, goals, and evolution. It goes over the principals of VR in terms of immersion, perception, and telepresence.  It discusses the educational value of VR by showing the ScienceSpace application which allows a student to learn about physics, electrostatic forces, and visualize the structures of molecules.


Biglari, Ehren, and Yusheng Feng. "Interactive Virtual-Reality Driven Learning Framework for Engineering and Science Education." Center for Simulation, Visualization and Real-Time Prediction (2014): n. pag. American Society for Engineering Education. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

http://asee-gsw.tulane.edu/pdf/interactive-virtual-reality-driven-learning-framework-for-engineering-and-science-education.pdf

This Article discusses the usage of several VR devices and motion trackers and the usage of the technology in the modern day. The setup of their device is described as well as several of the strengths and weaknesses of the various VR devices. The Oculus is explained in terms of hardware, describing how the headset generates the an undistorted 3D environment.


Castillo, Anna. "Virtual Reality and Education." Stanford Teaching Commons. Stanford University, 22 May 2014. Web. 02 Feb. 2016.

https://teachingcommons.stanford.edu/teaching-talk/virtual-reality-and-education

An article looking at Stanford’s Virtual Reality lab and applications of the technology. The level of immersion that the lab provides is shown as an example of how to provide the students with realistic environments to better educate them about the subjects. However the biggest drawback is shown to be the development of such simulations which often take a year for each. The immersion of VR is being compared to watching a normal video of the same information to compare the difference and find just how effective it would be.


"Learning Through Exploring Virtual Worlds." Global Warming Intro. University of Washington, n.d. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. http://www.hitl.washington.edu/projects/learning_center/pf/whyvr.htm

This site shows a project that attempted to use VR to explain and show a representation of Global Warming. The projects plan was to allow students to manipulate environmental variables to see how the atmosphere is affected. The site also explains the role VR could play in education explaining how the immersive experience can be used to present lessons.


Orlosky, J.; Weber, M.; Gu, Y.; Sonntag, D.; and Sosnovsky,S. A.  2015c.  An interactive pedestrian environment simulator for cognitive monitoring and evaluation, March 2015. Web. 02 Feb. 2016. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jason_Orlosky/publication/276848891_An_Interactive_Pedestrian_Environment_Simulator_for_Cognitive_Monitoring_and_Evaluation/links/55c0e2dc08aed621de1506a6.pdf

This article looks at using the Oculus Rift in a test for observing and monitoring pedestrians with cognitive impairments. The test uses VR to determine reactions and the pedestrians vision. The article also discusses problems with having the user physically interact with the world in a way that feels natural and use of the Leap Motion Control to track hand motion.


Piovesan, Sandra Dutra, Liliana Maria Passerino, and Adrian Soares Pereira. Proceedings of the International Association for Development of The Information Society (Iadis) International Conference on Cognition And Exploratory Learning in Digital Age (Celda) (Madrid, Spain, October 19-21, 2012). Virtual Reality as a Tool in The Education. Universidade Federal Do Rio Grande Do Sul. Web. 4 Feb. 2016. http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED542830.pdf

This article discuss the idea of using VR in education, explaining how it allows a student to explore and build their knowledge. It focuses on how VR can be used to simulate environments which would be too difficult or expensive for the student to visit normally. The article describes how the subject of Formal Languages was implemented into a 3D environment to allow for a VR test of the subject.


Reiners, T., Teräs, H., Chang, V., Wood, L. C., Gregory, S., Gibson, D., Petter , N. & Teräs, M. (2014). Authentic, immersive, and emotional experience in virtual learning environments: The fear of dying as an important learning experience in a simulation. In Transformative, innovative and engaging. Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Teaching Learning Forum, 30-31 January 2014. Perth: The University of Western Australia. http://ctl.curtin.edu.au/professional_development/conferences/tlf/tlf2014/refereed/reiners.html

This article describes how the addition of the Oculus Rift can improve the experiences of VR to be used to educate students. The article shows the comparison between passive and active learning and how VR would work compared to typical teaching methods. The article also shows a test run through VR where a person navigates a dangerous factory to determine how much a person would value their avatar’s safety in VR.


"Solar System Exploration." Planets - Solar System Exploration. NASA, n.d. Web. 2 Feb. 2016.

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/

NASA’s guide to the aspects of our Solar System with a list of the planets and other celestial bodies. Provides information about the statistics of the planet's size, distance, and orbit, as well as an overview of the planets and their history.


"Unreal Engine 4 Documentation." Epic Games, Inc, n.d. Web. 02 Feb. 2016. https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/index.html

A guide to Unreal Engine 4 including tutorials to the basic aspects of Unreal and creating a video game. The site provides a great deal of information about the program to assist a beginner in the creation of a basic game.


"Virtual Reality Technologies for Treating Obesity." - NHLBI, NIH. N.p., Nov. 2010. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/research/reports/2010-vr

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute held a meeting to discuss the potential use of VR to monitoring and controlling weight gain. The article discusses how VR can be used to suggest healthier eating through the social networking and the motivational and teaching aspects of VR. It discusses the ways to control an experiment with VR and the applications of it in the future.


Esperanza Gonzalez Capstone

For my senior capstone I decided to do something that was relevant to who I am and what I love to do. I noticed that many of the cultural and traditional values in the Latino community tend to fade away in U.S. because they're not in their country of origin. My overall goal was to restate the importance of Latino values and why it’s so important to pay tribute to them.With this project I touched on the following topics; family, social justice, stereotypical views, the role Latinos play in the U.S, and Religion. These topics play a role in my personal life and also in the lives of many others, which I why I chose to do them. I wanted to bring attention to these topics to give the audience a sense of what many families with Latino/Hispanic descent have in their lives. My inspiration for this gallery was the artistic style of Frida Kahlo. Most of the work is inspired by her life and the way she lived it. This is specifically focused on the traditional ways of Latin American art. I learned more things about my culture and discovered new ways to view the world. This capstone process was a very long but has finally has come to an end. This project definitely reflects who I am as person, and defines my interests and the way that this country has changed me.

Click here for my Bibliography 

Raz's Capstone

For me, coming up with my capstone was easy. Last summer I took a course in web development at the New York Code + Design Academy. I really enjoyed it and once I completed the course, I had a strong feeling that I wanted to find a career in web development. It’s a really interesting field and it’s growing more and more as years pass. So, I decided to focus my capstone on improving my knowledge and experience with web technology.
Learning by practice is the best way to learn, so that’s what I did. I started a website, and roughly every month of 2015-2016 school year, I made projects and put them on my website. These projects were mostly just web games, written in the standard web languages: Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and JavaScript. I devised these projects with the help of my mentors, Mr. Miles and my dad. The process of making each project was designed to teach me some aspect of web development. For example, one of my projects was a jigsaw puzzle game called “Jigsaw Joust” that used a leaderboard to keep track of top times. For this, I needed a database, and that’s the area of learning that that project covered.
My website has more than the projects -- I am in Senior Computer Science and I wanted an easy way to keep track of the assignments I completed, so I put them on my GitHub account. I have provided a portal to my GitHub on the website as well as a page detailing some of my favorite projects I’ve done for the class. I also have a blog on tumblr where I have kept track of my capstone’s progress over the months.
The final product is online at http://raz1.com/.



Bibliography

NOTE: some of these sources I did not cite in MLA format because I was citing the entire website as a source.



Stack Overflow is the most popular branch of the Stack Exchange Network. Like all Stack Exchange sites, it is a question and answer forum. Stack Overflow specifically is centered around programming and coding topics. It has a system that allows users to vote for the best answer to a question, assuring that the original asker and any other viewers with the same question are answered as completely as possible.
Stack Overflow is a popular option among web developers and has been extremely useful for me over the past several months that I’ve been working on my capstone. Its voting system combined with a round-the-clock team of moderators (who are mostly professionals in computer-related subjects) makes it a very trustworthy source of information. If you have any sort of programming or coding question, chances are it’s already been asked and answered on Stack Overflow.


W3Schools Online Web Tutorials. www.w3schools.com

W3Schools is the largest online web developer information website. It offers tutorials on all the following web languages: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, SQL, Bootstrap, and jQuery. It offers quizzes and exams on these languages. It also has a YouTube channel with guides on making websites. It also offers the very useful “try-it-yourself” webpage editor, which contains examples of how a certain functionality in one of the languages works and allows the user to modify these examples and observe the result.
W3Schools has been criticized for making its content too simplified for users who are new to web development. I think this criticism is accurate but I think its simplicity is helpful -- when learning a new concept or trying to wrap your head around object-oriented programming the easy explanations and basic examples are conducive to “getting it.” For the more experienced developer, Mozilla is probably a better option.


Mozilla Developer Network. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/

MDN, created by Mozilla, the same group who made the Firefox browser, is a community-maintained resource for web developers. It offers a thorough and detailed explanation for all functionalities of web languages such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript and NodeJS. MDN’s web APIs (application programming interfaces) are especially helpful because of their comprehensiveness and organization.
MDN is useful for the above reasons, though its guides often lack examples. Despite this, it always provides solid explanations -- for some JavaScript functions it will even show the user how the function is written (as in, it shows what the code does with more code). I believe it is best used in conjunction with W3Schools because both sites have strengths in different areas.



Firebase is an online application that does cloud service providing and data management. It is integrated into JavaScript as a library that allows the developer to read information from and write information to one of its servers. It was acquired by Google in 2014 and just this month underwent some big structural changes.
One of the projects I did required the use of a database. I thought that learning SQL (Structured Query Language) or one of its variants would take too long and probably delay progress on other parts of the capstone, so I tried using Firebase. I think I made the right choice in using it because it’s fairly easy to comprehend for someone who has experience with JavaScript (which I do).


Udacity Nanodegree. https://www.udacity.com/

Udacity is an online classroom offering “nanodegrees” in web development. These “nanodegrees” are certificates that one has completed the Udacity course, which takes roughly 6 to 8 weeks with a few hours spent learning per day. It was founded by Sebastian Thrun, a former Google VP and Professor of Computer Science at Stanford (read: really smart guy). Udacity also offers courses on other computer-related subjects, such as building robotic cars.
Once I’m near the end of the year I plan to start the Udacity nanodegree in web development. The goal of my capstone is to learn as much as possible this year to prepare myself for a potential career in web work, so though I have not used this source yet, it will be useful in a few months. I am waiting for the end of the year to start it because I will have more free time then to complete this fairly demanding program.


Ellingwood, Justin. “How To Launch Your Site on a New Ubuntu 14.04 Server with LAMP, SFTP, and DNS | DigitalOcean.” DigitalOcean. N.p., 13 May 2014. Web. 12 Jan. 2016. <https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-launch-your-site-on-a-new-ubuntu-14-04-server-with-lamp-sftp-and-dns>.

DigitalOcean is an online cloud infrastructure that provides developers with online servers. Basically, it’s a website hosting program. It’s the one I chose to host my website. This article I found on their forums is a guide on how to launch a website on an Ubuntu server using their service.
This source was very helpful as there isn’t a guide for this particular process anywhere else on the internet. It’s accurate, readable, and isn’t too technical. It does rely on the user’s knowledge of other process required for the launch such as installing a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) stack, but it provides links to guides on these processes.


Carranza, Pablo. "How To Use Filezilla to Transfer and Manage Files Securely on Your VPS | DigitalOcean." DigitalOcean. N.p., 17 October 2013. Web. 12 January 2016. <https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-use-filezilla-to-transfer-and-manage-files-securely-on-your-vps>.

DigitalOcean is an online cloud infrastructure that provides developers with online servers. Basically, it’s a website hosting program. It’s the one I chose to host my website. This article I found on their forums is a guide on how to transfer and manage files using Firezilla.
This article was super useful because transferring files from my computer to the server is roughly ten percent of the time I spend working on a project. In order to make changes to my website, I have to modify its files on my machine and then upload them to the server. This process is especially necessary during debugging, when I need to make changes and until I fix whatever problem I’m having.


Ellingwood, Justin. “How To Install Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP (LAMP) stack on Ubuntu 14.04 | DigitalOcean.” DigitalOcean. N.p., 18 April 2014. Web. 14 January 2016. <https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-linux-apache-mysql-php-lamp-stack-on-ubuntu-14-04>.

This is another guide I found on DigitalOcean’s site that I used to launch my website. This article specifically explains how to install Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP (LAMP) on an Ubuntu server.
This article was useful to me because Linux and Apache are, for my website, necessary components. In order to manage the site’s files I need control of the terminal, which is provided by the Linux operating system, and in order to actually host the files I need a web server, which is provided by Apache. MySQL is a database language and PHP is a dynamic content language, both of which my website has alternatives for.
The guide itself, like most of the other DigitalOcean guides I have found, is very clearly written and not too technical or abstruse. It can be a little intimidating to someone who has never used the terminal before and the guide doesn’t completely parse and explain the lines it tells you to run, but it’s reasonable since the audience of this source most likely has at least some experience running shell commands.

Zoe Schwingel-Sauer Capstone

 Recently there has been a movement to address the criminal justice system within the United States. The truth is the “United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population, yet we have almost 25 percent of the world’s total prison population.” (Hilary Clinton) There has been a lot of focus on the system in general, which is majorly important since the system includes a multitude of racism, sexism, and class discrimination. 
    Ever since reading Native Son in 10th grade, I have felt particularly passionate about learning more on the criminal justice system and discussing with others on how to improve or fix it. After talking with various people within the field of study, I was interested in how ex-prisoners re-enter their community after being in jail, and what could be done to help the transition. Then, on July 7, 2015, I watched John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight. The show’s main segment focused on bail in the United States and its impact on impoverished people. This inspired my senior Capstone project. 
    I wanted to do a research project where I could investigate what was going on with bail within the criminal justice system. The biggest goal of this project is to bring awareness to an aspect of the criminal justice system, which can be fixed if there are many advocates for it. This website is for the purpose of learning and I hope it helps the readers to become more knowledgeable about the bail system, and motivates you to make a difference with this cause.


Clio Fleece Capstone

A year before I started thinking about my Capstone, my photography class watched a video made for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) called "WWF Parallax Sequence". Using only one still photo per shot, it had been animated in such a way that each picture moved in layers, giving it depth and making the video feel completely 3D and immersive. When I started brainstorming for my Capstone project, that video was one of the first things that came to mind. Although I knew I would basically have to teach myself how to use at least two new Adobe programs, I decided to continue with that idea. I had a fully-formed visual concept, but I also wanted my final video to have something more, to unite the photos in an overarching theme. Originally, I chose to photograph people doing what they were passionate about. As I started photographing, my theme evolved into only people I had previously communicated and set up a specific time with (walking around the city to find people was too unreliable), and people doing what they were passionate about as a job. In total, my final video contains photos of 10 different people, as well as sound bites from short interviews with each subject. The two questions I asked in each interview were, "What makes you stay passionate and/or motivated about what you do?" and "What are some of the challenges you've faced trying to do what you love full-time, and how have you overcome them?" Enjoy!

"WWF PARALLAX SEQUENCE" (referenced above)


Dillon Hershey Capstone

For my capstone, I decided to make a Spanish lab for students in Spanish 1 and 2. This space and time would be used for students to come and get help on their homework, projects, or notes that they didn’t understand. I chose to have the lab on Tuesdays and Thursdays during both lunch bands and I put it in the advisory memo to notify students and upperclassmen who might want to be tutors. I held it in a small room across the hall from Senorita Manuel’s room and had one other student who was a consistent tutor along with me. This changed over time because not many students were coming to get help. Senorita Manuel suggested that I move Spanish lab to her room so that students could also get help from her. She started to advertise it in her classes so students come in to retake quizzes or standards and I would help them if they had any questions. I helped lots of kids, mostly when the quarter was ending and it was usually with their standards. I hope that next year, if Spanish lab continues, the lab can help people with more things than just their standards and that people will come year round.

A picture of students working on Spanish.
IMG_2291
IMG_2291

Bibliography:

"Language Positions." Central Intelligence Agency. Central Intelligence Agency, 21 Apr. 2007. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

This source is from the Central Intelligence Agency and it shows what positions they need filled that have to do with foreign languages. They need people who can speak and understand other languages, particularly the ones that they use while under security breaches. On this site they are explaining the different language programs they have to train their employees with or programs that their employees use to sharpen their language skills with. I can use this as a source because this source shows that there is a huge demand for jobs using other languages. This can be used as an incentive for the students now, because it means that if they are proficient in the language that they are learning, a job can almost be guaranteed.


Dounay, Jennifer. "High School Graduation Requirements: Foreign Language." 50-State Comparison. Education Commission of the States, 23 Mar. 2007. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

This source is from the education commission of the states and it is a list of the states and their requirements of foreign language education for the students to graduate. The list includes how many credits each state requires the students to have. This source is helpful to me because it shows how many states have implemented foreign language education. This shows students that they are the not the only ones learning a new language. Also it’s sad because there aren’t that many states that require language credits to graduate and this provides proof that we need to have more states have requirements.


Duncan, Arne. "Education and Language Gap." Foreign Language Summit. University of Maryland, Washington D.C. 8 Dec. 2010. U.S. Department of Education. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

This is a speech that the Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, made at the Foreign Language Summit that the CIA director called for in 2010. In the speech he talks about how the U.S. is falling behind other countries in the foreign language education. He wants to bridge the language gap that the U.S. is experiencing. This helps me because this is an important figure in the education world who is speaking out about how we have to fix the education system around foreign language. This shows that people actually care about having foreign language education in schools and that they want to fix the problem that no one is requiring language credits for graduating high school students.


Franzén, Carl G. F. “Foreign Language Teaching in the High Schools of Iowa”. The School Review 29.8 (1921): 610–616. Web...

This source is a book that was written about the foreign language teaching in the high schools of Iowa. They had a program that taught high schoolers Latin, Spanish, French, and Norse. This book is a report on how the schools taught the languages and what schools offered what languages. It also noted the successfulness of the language classes and how the class sizes didn’t differ from language to language. This source will help me because it shows that the practice of learning different languages happened early in this century. It proves that students in high school actually want to learn languages and that they would excel in language programs put in schools.



Hancock, Charles R. "Alternative Assessment and Second Language Study: What and Why?" Alternative Assessment and Second Language Study: What and Why? (1994): n. pag. Digests. Center for Applied Linguistics. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

This source is talking about a different way for the people who are studying a second language to take tests because our education system is not the greatest at the moment. When you add in a second language to the testing system, the students tend to do worse. This can create problems in the student’s minds and make them want to hate the language. This is problem that only seems to appear in the U.S. education system. This source helps me because it shows that students have an unhealthy relationship with the language and then it makes them not want to study the language anymore.


Kibler, Amanda, and Sandy Philipose. "What the Research Shows." American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, n.d. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

This source is a website that has lists of why teaching foreign languages in schools are good for the students. One of the reasons that foreign language education is helpful is because the student’s academic achievement improves in areas other than the foreign language education course. Also some researchers believe that learning another language also provides cognitive benefits. This source can help me because it is a list of the sources that I can use for proving a certain point about why learning a language is beneficial for students. If there is a certain point that people would argue against learning a second language, I can point them to this page. Or if students feel as if learning a second language is not important to them, I can show them all the research and benefits.


Panetta, Leon E. "Foreign Language Education: If 'Scandalous' in the 20th Century, What Will It Be in the 21st Century?" Foreign Language Summit. University of Maryland, Washington D.C. 8 Dec. 2010. Web. 5 Feb. 2016.

This is another speech from the foreign language summit, this one made by the CIA director. In the speech he says that the U.S. has a weak foreign language policy and that there are plenty of other countries that are better than us. He wants to put programs in all grades in school, which should help the children with learning languages but also with learning about cultures. He talks about the history of foreign language education and about how it fell through with the World Wars. This source is very helpful to me because he touches on everything that I want people to know about foreign language education. This source explains some of the history and what went wrong and how we can fix it to make a better tomorrow for the students of today.


Payne, William Morton. “Modern Language Teaching in Secondary Schools”. The School Review 2.2 (1894): 74–82. Web...

This report was published in 1894 about the teaching of other languages in high schools. The author writes about certain ways that they can improve their programs because they aren’t very good. The report also talks about how learning a language in high school can be the best education a man can get because they are learning other men’s languages. This can still apply to today’s students because their peers may have a first language that is not English. This research helps me because it shows that people before today, have taken a second language and had it help their lives and careers.


Rhodes, Nancy C., and Ingrid Pufahl. Foreign Language Teaching in the U.S. Schools. Rep. N.p.: Center for Applied Linguistics, 2009. Print.

This source is an executive summary of a report that the Center for Applied Linguistics produces about a national survey that researches the programs and the enrollment of foreign language education in primary and secondary schools. The data that they include in the report is all about the how much instruction the children receive, the languages that are offered, immersion schools, and how much time is actually spent speaking the language. This report is very helpful for me because it shows what schools are doing to make sure that the children are getting the best foreign language education and it suggests what schools can do better. This shows that lots of schools are trying to implement foreign language education and that the students are receiving the instruction well.


Tucker, G. Richard. "A Global Perspective on Bilingualism and Bilingual Education." A Global Perspective on Bilingualism and Bilingual Education (1999): n. pag. Digests. Center for Applied Linguistics. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

This is a report about how the world perceives foreign language education. It compares and contrasts the U.S. against the other countries on foreign language education. We are severely behind and we can’t seem to catch up to the other countries. This is a good source for me because it backs up what all the other sources have informed me. It helps with the push that other people are going through the same thing as these students even though they are half a world away. This would be a good incentive for people to make more programs for foreign education in high schools so we can reach to catch up to the other countries.

Melissa Alvarez Capstone


In October of 2015, NBC 10 was airing an investigation about youth homelessness in Philadelphia. It was after a mere 45 minutes that I realized how much we DON'T talk about the hundreds of youth in our city who are living without a home. I knew then and there what I wanted my capstone to be about. 
Since my junior year, I have been an active member of the Philadelphia Youth Commission. The Commission has 21 members of youth who are elected to represent their respective City Council district and Councilperson. One of the many things we do is host monthly meetings on topics that affect youth, so I used this as a partnering opportunity for my project. I wanted to have a meeting about youth homelessness, but nothing like we've had before. My objective was to change the location, provide refreshments for the first time, expand our audience, and have a legitimate call to action when we were done. 
A difficulty I faced was the new Mayoral transition happening in City Hall, which is where I wanted to have my meeting. We couldn't lock down a location until two weeks before the meeting was supposed to happen, but we were eventually lucky enough to book Conversation Hall. After attending a public hearing that happened on April 29th about the same topic, I introduced myself to some of the people who testified and convinced them to be speakers at my meeting. 
On May 11th, we had roughly 50 attendees including youth groups, commissioners, and people who work with at-risk youth. My speakers included Ms. Helen Fitzpatrick - Director of LGBT Affairs for the City of Philadelphia and John Ducoff - Director of Covenant House PA. I asked Ms. Fitzpatrick to speak about the work she does for the city because 54% of homeless youth identify as LGBTQ. That's more than half, and was something I felt needed to be a larger part of the conversation. We were also lucky enough to have Mr. Ducoff because Covenant House is Philadelphia's most well known homeless shelter for youth. This had to be a collaborative conversation about what we could all do to help face the issue of youth homelessness. 
When it was over, everyone left the room with something they'd never learned up until that meeting. It seemed like doing a sleep out in front of City Hall was one of the most effective ways we could contribute. It not only helps to raise awareness, but has raised over $50,000 in the past, and it's something we plan to do in the near future as our call to action. 


Blog Link: To read more about my capstone process and view pictures from the meeting, click here
Annotated Bibliography: 

Morgan Zalot and Vince Lattanzio. "Faces of Homeless Youth." NBC 10 Philadelphia. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Feb. 2016.


NBC 10 created a short documentary about the homeless youth in Philadelphia. They interviewed 5 different youth who shared their story about how they ended up without homes. It was originally what inspired me to choose the capstone that I did. I would like to have one or two of these youth speak at my meeting. This documentary made me realize just how unprioritized the topic of youth homelessness is in the City of Philadelphia, and how we aren’t doing enough to service them like we should. A lot of them unfortunately do not trust the system and by choice end up on the street because it’s where they feel safe. This is a stigma we need to change and is a crucial part of my meeting’s purpose.


Soto, Joy D. "Philadelphia Youth Commission." Philadelphia Youth Commission Home Comments. City of Philadelphia, Sept. 2008. Web. 1 Feb. 2016.


The Philadelphia Youth Commission is an office created by the mayor for youth between the ages of 12 and 23 years old who represent their respective councilpeople. I happen to be on the Youth Commission and would like to use it as a resource for my capstone. We hold monthly meetings on topics that affect youth. We have four committees: Health and Recreation, Jobs and Economics, Education, and Public Safety. My meeting will be relative to all four of these committees and I plan to work with them during the planning of my project. They will each be crucial to forming an accurate presentation for the people attending my meeting.


"Philadelphia County QuickFacts from the US Census Bureau." Philadelphia County QuickFacts from the US Census Bureau. U.S. Department of Commerce, Jan. 2014. Web. 3 Feb. 2016.


A large part of my meeting will include presenting statistics about youth in the city. The U.S. census for the city of Philadelphia each year helps me to keep track of how many youth are currently living in the city. Right now we are working with more than 300,000 youth, and the percentage of them that are living in poverty are homeless. There are many that are homeless and undocumented because they choose daily whether or not they want to be a part of the system or take their chances living on the streets which for many is the safer option they feel. Documenting the numbers is very important to my presentation and these facts will be useful to that.


"Facts on Homelessness." Project HOME. Project Home, n.d. Web. 3 Feb. 2016.


Project home is a website that presents information about homelessness. On a single night in January 2015, 564,708 people were experiencing homelessness. That’s over half a million people documented. There are thousands in this country who aren’t even accounted for and those are numbers we simply cannot stand for anymore. This website presents factual information about how many people are currently homeless, why they end up homeless, and what’s being done to help them. This will be one of the options for facts I’ll be putting in my presentation.


"Mission & Vision." Northern Children's Services. City of Philadelphia, 13 May 2015. Web. 1 Feb. 2016.


The work done at Northern Children’s Services is designed to create a better future for their clients who are primarily young mothers and their children. They believe that every child has the potential to transform him or herself – no matter their background or life situations. If they invest in that potential through services that focus on care, safety, health, permanency, independence, and positive relationships, the children will lead happier and healthy lives. These are one of many home options youth do not currently know about that I would like to present in my meeting.



Munoz, Judith. "Shalom Inc." Shalom Inc. City of Philadelphia, n.d. Web. 1 Feb. 2016.


Shalom, Inc. is a school and community-based private, non-profit, non-sectarian agency. They offer a variety of professional prevention, intervention and treatment services through our community-based program. Shalom Inc.'s mission is to encourage resiliency, character building, and recovery through prevention, intervention and counseling services for children, adolescents and adults. My mom used to work at Shalom Inc. and they offer counseling for youth who are troubled at home or who are part of the juvenile detention agency. Not only did I pick this because of its relevance to my capstone, but also because my mom is an affiliate with this organization whom I hope to partner with for my capstone.


Farr, Stephannie. "Shelter Shooting Leaves 1 Worker Dead, 1 Hurt." Shelter Shooting Leaves 1 Worker Dead, 1 Hurt. Philly.com, 17 Jan. 2016. Web. 3 Feb. 2016.


This article will be one of the prime topics in my presentation. A huge part of why youth are choosing to be homeless and living on the street is because they simply do not trust the system anymore. The shelters have proven to not be safe. A person was shot and killed by a previous resident, yet these are the place we’re telling our youth to go? It’s unsafe and many would rather live on their own than to ever have to endure an experience like that. Shelters may offer a roof, but they do not offer safety. They are not homes and that’s the issue. We need to bridge that gap of trust between the homeless and the system so that they can get the help they deserve, but not by providing them unsafe living quarters. And unfortunately a lot of it has to do with the budget in the city. There simply isn’t a lot of money. So this is something I’d like to talk about in my meeting.


Turcios, Melissa. "Why My Neighborhood Kids Don't Trust the System." Audio blog post. Youth Radio. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Feb. 2016.


I thought this podcast was really interesting because it centers on a woman who’s neighborhood kids who are primarily Black and Latino. They early on knew what the sound of gunshots were. After a nearby shooting happened, police showed up not long after and were asking the kids questions, but they were very reluctant to be cooperative with the police officers who were asking questions about what happened. At so early on, kids are taught not to trust the system in fear of repercussions that may follow. This was in Washington D.C., but is something that is happening in cities all over the country, especially Philadelphia. Early on our kids are being taught to keep quiet in order to survive in their own neighborhood. The system has been backwards like this for quite some time, and it’s something I’d like to talk about in my capstone.



McElroy, Molly. "Intervention to Improve Foster Families’ Trust, Connectedness." UW Today. University of Washington, 12 June 2012. Web. 05 Feb. 2016.


This article was written by the University of Washington about advice for new foster parents. Often kids are just looking for a safe place to call home. They’ve grown up in a system that is known to give them trouble and often do not feel comfortable trusting new people. This is the biggest thing they should attempt to build with these youth. Allow them to trust. Most adolescents in foster care simply need a stable home life that provides a sense of belonging, love and someone who shows a genuine interest in their lives. If there is no shared history, it might be harder for them to make that connection which is why you should be open and allow them time to connect with you on their own personal level. This is something I’d like to bring up at the end of my presentation; What we’re doing wrong, and what we can do to mend the issues.


"Mission & History." The Attic Youth Center. Web. 05 Feb. 2016.


The Attic Youth Center creates opportunities for LGBTQ youth to develop into healthy, independent, civic-minded adults within a safe and supportive community, and promotes the acceptance of LGBTQ youth in society. The Attic Youth Center has been really important in my research because over 54% of homeless youth in Philadelphia identify as LGBTQ. That’s more than half, and not many people recognize this statistic. Families that are unaccepting of their children’s sexuality or gender preferences are often the reason many of them end up homeless. There aren’t many programs specifically provided for the safety of LGBTQ youth, and Attic Youth Center is one of the very few. I would like someone from the Attic Youth Center to come speak at the meeting and/or be a part of the conversation and give a different perspective on the conversation of youth homelessness and things we can do to help. This source is the Attic Youth Center home website explaining their mission and purpose which can be brought up at the meeting as a resource to youth.

Aaron Block Capstone

For my Capstone project I designed a piece of software called Ribbon. Ribbon is a word processor designed specifically for screenplays since screenplays have a very specific format in which they are supposed to be written. The format includes unusual capitalization and indentation to convey character dialog, actions, new scenes, and other components of film.

The process of designing and making Ribbon consisted of a lot more planning than I had anticipated. During Capstone Week, I spent a lot of time doing research on different ways of organizing the code I was writing. This was very helpful because it made the code I was writing much easier to understand and follow but it also made it more difficult to write code because I was forced to follow a rigid structure.

I learned a lot about programming and my personal capabilities. First, I learned that there are so many resources available for free and on the Internet to allow you to do things with computers that I did not think I was able to do so easily. Second, I learned that a huge amount of software development is spent on thinking about the way the code should be structured rather than writing the actual code. This makes it much easier for other developers to come along later and contribute to your work.


The source code for the application as well as the application itself can be downloaded here.


Works Cited

Buschmann, Frank, Kevlin Henney, and Douglas C. Schmidt. On Patterns and Pattern Languages. Chichester: Wiley, 2007. Wikibooks. Web. 2 Feb. 2016. Rather than focusing on the components of a piece of software, On patterns and pattern languages emphasizes the relationship between different components. These are called patterns and thinking of my software in terms of the patterns I'm using rather than the components I'm creating has become very helpful in the writing of my code. The more thought I put in to the patterns I use, the easier it becomes for others to understand what the code does and to contribute to the project. Writing using patterns introduces other problems. It’s easy for me to write code that is messy but does the job effectively. To write code following strict patterns is difficult. This source has also made me realize that I need to plan out what code I’m going to write a lot more before I get to writing it.

Demaree, David. "The Art of the Commit." The Art of the Commit · An A List Apart Article. A List Apart & David Demaree, 02 Feb. 2016. Web. 02 Feb. 2016. This article is an excerpt from David Demaree's Git For Humans. My open-source project is being hosted online by a website called Github. Each time I save my project to Github, I must save it with a short message describing what I've changed. This article describes the best way to construct those message so others (and myself) can understand how my project has changed overtime. This is particularly important for making my project open-source. If I want other people to contribute to my project, they need to be able to understand what is going on. If people want to look at an older version of my project, it will be easy for them to find which version they are looking for because every time I save the project to Github, there will be a short message associated with it.

Fedosejev, Artemij. React. js Essentials. Packt Publishing Ltd, 2015. I am using a software framework called React.js. This book is a great book to reference if I do not know how to do something in React. Using React in my application will help me make Ribbon organized and will ensure that I use effective and easy-to-understand programming patterns. React introduces a lot of new conventions and concepts to my code-writing. Therefore, a reference book about React is necessary so I can refer to it at points in the code-writing process where I’m lost. React.js Essentials comes with great examples of how to use React effectively that are easy to understand. Given the important role that React plays in my project, having a React reference book is an absolute necessity.

Fogel, Karl. Producing Open Source Software: How to Run a Successful Free Software Project. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly, 2005. Producing Open Source Software. Karl Fogel, 2005. Web. 2 Feb. 2016. Karl Fogel writes about how to create an open-source project that gains attention and support. He does not deal with the technical, programmatic side of development as much as he deals with how to publicize your project effectively and make sure that once people are aware of your project they continue to pay attention to your project. While I’m developing my app I must be mindful of how what I’m doing may affect how other people see my project. If I’m not careful about the changes I make to my project and how I share those changes publicly on the project page (http://github.com/blockaj/ribbon) it could alienate people who may otherwise contribute to my project.

"Gulp API Docs." GitHub. Gulp, 17 Dec. 2015. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. Gulp is a task manager. While I am developing my application, it’s important that I can easily compile the code I’m writing. It is Gulp’s job to manage all of that. The Gulp API Docs are documentation about how to use Gulp. Without this, the workflow of my project would be very slow and inefficient. Using Gulp will relieve me of a lot of tedious work. Knowing how to use it is obviously essential in being able to use it. This documentation is a very good instruction on how to use Gulp so that my workload is a little less.  

Hahn, Jungpil, Jae Yun Moon, and Chen Zhang. "Emergence of new project teams from open source software developer networks: Impact of prior collaboration ties." Information Systems Research 19.3 (2008): 369-391. This source talks about why people join open-source projects. One of the most compelling reasons is that the contributors have strong ties to the initiator (in this case, me). This is important to keep in mind. The people who may contribute the most to my project may already be around me. In addition, this source is useful because I can use to market my open-source project to developers. At this point in my project, I’ve worked the least on trying to attract others to contribute to my project. If I want to start focusing on this more, I should learn more about why people contribute to open-source projects.

Kubrick, Stanley, and Anthony Burgess. A Clockwork Orange: A Screenplay. Hollywood Scripts, 1970. While having a description of the format of a screenplay is helpful, it’s also very helpful to see a full and polished screenplay. As I progress through the process of developing my application, I will compare the screenplays I write in Ribbon to this screenplay. If, by comparison, everything looks good, I know I’m okay to move on. I can also use the screenplay to see how character and story development works in a real screenplay. Similar to the McKee source, A Clockwork Orange: A Screenplay could give me good insights on some features that would be helpful for experienced and skilled screenwriters to have in a word processor.

McKee, Robert. Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. New York: HarperCollins, 1997. This book describes the process of writing a screenplay. It goes over how to develop a story and characters. The reason I find it helpful is that it gives me an idea of what things are important to a screenwriter. This could clue me in onto some good ideas for features I may include in my software. It also has some good information about how screenplays should be styled which are also very helpful. If I want my software to format screenplays effectively, there should be a reputable source behind the way I chose to format the screenplay.

Mockus, Audris, Roy T. Fielding, and James D. Herbsleb. "Two case studies of open source software development: Apache and Mozilla." ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM) 11.3 (2002): 309-346. This case study looks at two of the biggest existing open-source projects: Mozilla and Apache. One of the things this source addresses that other sources in this bibliography do not discuss is an open-source project’s ability to compete with commercial products. This source is useful to me because it describes what makes open-source software so successful. It explains what Mozilla and Apache do right as open-source projects and what they do wrong. There’s is a lot I can learn from this source about how to make my project a successful open-source project and not just a successful piece of software.

Rising, Linda, and Norman S. Janoff. "The Scrum software development process for small teams." IEEE software 17.4 (2000): 26. This is a simple explanation of the Scrum software development process. It incorporates using patterns to develop software with a workflow. I can use this source to learn how to work more efficiently on my project while still writing good code. This source also relates to the Buschmann source which is all about using patterns in programming. Scrum software development may also be useful if others want to contribute to my open-source project. If they decide to, using a development process could help make sure that not only my code is good and organized but theirs is as well. Trust me, this is a good source.


The Medical Experience

My overall goal for my capstone was to educate those on the intensity of the medical field. Not many people understand how long it takes to get certified and be practicing. With luck, I hope that people understand how serious I am about my future of becoming a doctor. I did an interview asking a few questions, such as "What do you think some of the challenges that people who go into the medical field face?" and "How long do you think it takes to become a licensed and practiced doctor?". With my project, I had to do the interviews by myself and Tamira Bell as my tech person.

A major part of my capstone (a portion of the video can be found here) was supposed to be the interview of the plastic surgeon from across the street, which did happen, but I had audio problems because I didn't have Tamira with me. The capstone I'm turning in isn't the same one that I created in the beginning, but I'm still proud of my creation.

"About Dr. Cross." Cross Plastic Surgery. N.p., 17 July 2011. Web. 05 Feb. 2016.

Kevin J. Cross is the plastic surgeon who is the major interviewee for my capstone. He’s known for his highly skilled expertise of making someone who went under the knife look as though they hadn’t. He is board certified and his scores had ranked him in the top 3% nationwide. He has an extensive education background, attending Cornell University, New York Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University. He is an AOA honors graduate from University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. His success is due to his method of making an individualized treatment plan for each patients based off of different variables.


Andersen, Erika. "Please Don't Do These 9 Things In An Interview." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 3 June 2014. Web. 05 Feb. 2016.

This article was written by someone who has conducted many interviews. These tips are for higher level jobs, more professional, like newsprint companies or business-attire jobs. Each tip stems from an interview that she has done with someone before. There is the tip to be your own person, not to agree with everything that employer is saying because they could be testing you to see if you’re being genuine. There’s also the point of policing your voice to make sure the interviewer has time to actually ask questions. She had one lady who wouldn’t allow her to really say anything because she just kept talking. It’s also good to know some background about the company and not to go in blind, as you can appear as though you’re not really interested.


"Aspiring Docs." Aspiring Docs. Web. 05 Feb. 2016.

This website has multiple links that explains the process of preparing for medical school starting in high school. It mentions what high school classes you may want to take and any other extra programs you can do to start your path. There’s also a page where there are many stories that are from medical student explaining different topics such as the first time they meet a patient, what’s it’s like getting married while in medical school, and other things of that nature. This site is very resourceful for people want are considering going into the medical field.


"Interview DOs and DON'TS." Virginia Tech. N.p., 07 Oct. 2015. Web. 5 Feb. 2016.

This website describes what and what not to do during an interview. The don’ts are important tips,as they can cost you a good job/connect/deal. While most people will give you a quick list of the typical dont’s such as not to chew gum or come late, this list goes a little deeper. Falsification of any information reflects bad on you, and if you’re hired, the company as well. It could land them in a legal problem.


"Interviewing Skills: What to Do During an Interview." GCFLearnFree.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Feb. 2016.

This site talked about business etiquette. It was all about how to present yourself when being interviewed. One of the skills they mentioned was to pace yourself so that the person who is interviewing you sees that you’re taking time to think about what you’re going to say. It also says to cut back on the uhms or any words of uncertainty and to have confidence in your voice.


"Requirements for Becoming a Physician." Requirements for Becoming a Physician. Web. 05 Feb. 2016.

This source talks the stages of becoming a doctor. You have to start as an undergraduate and go through medical school, your residency, and then your fellowship. It outlines in particular what you have to do in each one of those steps. The lengthy part to becoming a doctor comes after your schooling is done. The residency program for family practices takes 3 years, while general surgery takes up to 5 years. The fellowship, however, is only needed if you want to do to be highly specialization in certain fields, such as gastroenterology. It goes a little into certifications and license to be able to legally practice. Though a doctor or physician maybe be certified, they have to do yearly coursework to assure they are current with the education.  


"Summary." U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Web. 05 Feb. 2016.

This website breaks down the general statistics of surgeons and physicians. Similar to the other websites, it talks about what they do and how to become one. What this website does have that the others don’t is the breakdown of pay wages and the projected growth of employment. According to the website, there is a project  14% increase in how many surgeons and physicians are going to be employed. That’s nearly 10,000 new doctors a year. Surgeons and physicians make the most out of all the occupations, around $187,000 more a year.


Carucci, John. "Ten Tips for DSLR Documentary Filmmaking." - For Dummies. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Feb. 2016.

These are just simple, basic tips for making a film with a DSLR. It’s about the angle and the interaction with your work. When conducting interviews, you have to decide which way you want them facing  and how the lighting is going to be. In my interviews the camera is looking forward wiht me off to the right so the interviewee is not looking straight at the camera, they’re looking off screen at me. The lighting is important as well. You don’t want too harsh lighting that it makes the subject look washed out, but you don’t want too soft lighting to make the subject undetectable on screen.


Spector, Col. "5 Simple Mistakes Documentary Filmmakers Make." Raindance. N.p., 13 Nov. 2012. Web. 5 Feb. 2016.

This source outlines what the common mistakes people who make documentaries do. The author has won awards for his films made with BBC and Channel 4 in the UK. The one thing that can make a documentary come off bad is if there isn’t a “vision”, meaning there wasn’t much thought and prep going into the video, If you just film and piece videos together, it’s not that special, but if you know how you want it to play out, and you do it, you’re making a masterpiece. Also, cheesy music in the back can kill the mood and vibe of the documentary. It’s supposed to coincide with the film, complementing it in  the right spots. The obvious one is to have terrible footage. If you try to film something and it’s poorly done, you can better your audience is going to know.


Bella Mezzaroba Capstone

For my capstone, I hosted a fundraiser  in support of an organization based in Panama called the Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project. The organization acts as a Noah’s ark for endangered amphibians and is currently researching a disease called Chytridiomycosis, a fungal infection responsible for a number of frog species going extinct.

I held bake sales to raise initial funds to purchase food, decorations, and raffle items for the event. I met with numerous people to help me iron out the logistics of event planning. The event itself was held on April 28th in SLA’s cafe. There was food, live music, a raffle and a speech made by me. There were a few other elements such as a “Write a Note to the Frogs” station where attendees could write a note on a frog cutout about their feelings on amphibians. My own pet frog was the guest of honor. At the end of the event, we raised about $200 for the Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project.

I chose to focus on Chytridiomycosis and amphibian conservation because it is a cause near and dear to my heart. Frogs and toads have always been an important part of my life. They’re such intricate and integral creatures that I feel do not get enough attention. A decline in frog population is a clear message that our environment is in danger. I truly believe that fighting for frog conservation is a step in the right direction for not only the amphibians themselves, but for environmental stability.

Link to Presentation
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1vwlFwRzVoqq5NHO5B2lC5S1cr12cYKcrk6TaSOxoNsc/edit?usp=sharing

Annotated Bibliography


"Frightening Statistics." Amphibian Ark. Amphibian Ark, n.d. Web. 3 Feb. 2016.


This page is from the Amphibian Ark, the umbrella organization for the Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project. On this page, various statistics on frog population decline are presented. 165 frog species are thought to be extinct in the wild and 500 species are believed to be threatened so immensely that extinction cannot be staved off. These type of staggering statistics are the reason I chose to undertake this project.


This source is reputable and reliable. The Amphibian Ark is a leading organization in frog conservation and their work is well recognized. The statistics are backed by various research institutions, all of which are reliable as well.


"Chytrid Fungus." The Amphibian Chytrid Fungus and Chytridiomycosis. Amphibian Ark, n.d. Web. 3 Feb. 2016.


This is another publication from Amphibian Ark. This one is an extensive overview of the chytrid fungus and what is can cause in frogs. It breaks down the biological jargon that may be hard to understand to someone who isn’t learned in fungal infections. Basically, Chytrid is a type of fungus with over 1,000 types, thriving in moist and wet environments. The species of Chytrid that is infecting frogs is called Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis or Bd. Bd is the only Chytrid fungus that affects vertebrates


The only reason I would question this source’s reliability is the lack of named authors. I trust that the Amphibian Ark put out reliable information but, in order for this source to be doubtlessly trustworthy.



"Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project." Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project. N.p., n.d.   Web. 05 Feb. 2016.


This is the organization in which I am donating the funds I gather from this project. It is called the Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project and is working to conserve frog species in . It’s an organization under the Amphibian Ark (AARK), an umbrella organization that encompasses other similar projects dedicated to the conservation of amphibians. The three principal partners are the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums, the Conservation Breeding Specialists and the Amphibian Specialist Group. Currently, there are 30 frog species that have been identified by AARK as priority rescue species.


This organization is working to fight a disease called chytridiomycosis which is caused by a bacteria called Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd). Currently, the Amphibian Rescue is working on researching the bacteria and possible cures for it.


"Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project." Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Feb. 2016.


This is a video put out by the Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project. The video summarizes everything that’s happening in Central America concerning the bacterial disease. It uses persuasive methods common in PSA’s. I actually intend on using some of these tactics when I make my posters. It’s a helpful PSA and I plan on using the video itself at my event.


The video is made by Amphibian Ark, which is a reliable source. Therefore, I feel that the information presented can be trusted and I have no qualms of using this video to help further my cause.


Chytridiomycosis (amphibian Chytrid Fungus Disease). Canberra: Dept. of the Environment and Heritage, Natural Heritage Trust, 2004. Web.


This is an article published by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources about Chytridiomycosis and it’s presence in Northern America. According to the publication, there are 14 confirmed amphibian species in Ohio that are afflicted with the disease. This source is a detailed report of the effects of Chytridiomycosis in the United States. The work that the Panama Conservation Centers are doing will help environmental programs across the world.


This source is very reliable. It was published by a governmental department in the state of Ohio.

This source is a published report done by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources of their findings concerning the fungal disease. I trust that the claims they make are reasonably made.


Groves, Eric. "Organizing Perfect Events." Small Business Trends. N.p., 21 Jan. 2010. Web. 05 Feb. 2016.


This is an article about organizing the perfect event. It gives specific tips on how to create an atmosphere before the event that promotes event inclusivity and sparks person interest. It also gives tips on how to successfully gather feedback from those who attend the event, which is something I plan on doing.


This article was written by a man named Eric Groves. The site has a short biographical snippet on him. He has over 20 years of experience with building sales and business development. He built the sales and business development departments of the organization he works for, Constant Contact. Constant Contact is a site that helps small businesses market their products. I’d consider an article written by this man reliable, as he is well informed on the subject and is a professional in his field.


Hawthorne, Randy. "5 Ways to Get More Out of Your Next Fundraising Event." Nonprofit Hub. N.p., 12 Feb. 2014. Web. 05 Feb. 2016.


This source can help me plan a successful and impactful awareness event. It’s a short and concise list of tips and tricks for getting people interested in my event. I’ve never planned an event before so this will be a very helpful source. It outlines techniques for making my cause clear and making my cause relevant which I something I know I will struggle with. I definitely need guidance for this aspect of the project.


I’d consider this source reliable. The domain is a .org and there is a listed author. The author, Randy Hawthorne, is a Professional Certified Marketer and has worked on marketing and organizational leadership to various organizations. He also does workshopping with high school students on entrepreneurship.


"How to Organise an Event to Raise Money / Awareness for Your Organisation." Knowhow Nonprofit. Just Giving, n.d. Web. 05 Feb. 2016.


This source is about event planning and effective marketing techniques. It covers the obvious things such as how to generate interest in the event as well as logistical aspects, such as ticket sales. It also addresses the fact that, in order for an event to flourish, sponsors are almost always necessary. This page presents a series of questions that I may not have necessarily thought of prior such as, “who will help me clean up.” This website will help me plan a smooth running, detail oriented event.


I don’t know how confidently I can speak to this sources credibility. There isn’t a stated author but the domain is a .org which leads me to believe the site is mildly reputable. Overall, I don’t think this source’s credibility is even that important. I’m not using it for facts, I’m using to for help on


Rosenblum, Erica Bree, Jamie Voyles, Thomas J. Poorten, and Jason E. Stajich. "The Deadly Chytrid Fungus: A Story of an Emerging Pathogen."PLOS Pathogens:. Ed. Hiten D. Madhani. N.p., 29 Jan. 2010. Web. 05 Feb. 2016.


This source is an academic article about Chytridiomycosis. The article covers the basics, such as what the fungus is, what is does and how detrimental it has been to frog populations. This source also goes into more detail on the biological reasons this fungus is infecting amphibians.


What’s so useful about this article is that everything is cited. Every claim is cited and the authors of the articles are clearly stated with a link to a page of their credentials. All four of the authors work in biology or zoology at various Universities. This source is one of the most reliable I’ve found.

Whittaker, Kellie, and Vance Vrendenburg. "Chytridiomycosis."Chytridiomycosis. N.p., 11 May 2011. Web. 05 Feb. 2016.


This source expands upon the disease chytridiomycosis and it’s wide spread effects. The bacteria, Bd, which causes it, has been found on all continents except Antarctica. There is no cure yet for the disease. However, conservation centers, such as the one in Panama, have tried various treatment methods such as increases salinity in the water given to the frogs and increasing temperature.


I would consider this source reliable. It’s filled with claims, all of which are cited. All of the information can be credited to scholars, articles published for academic purposes, or organizations dedicated to mitigating the loss of amphibians to chytridiomycosis.



David Leonard Capstone

For my capstone I decided on making a 2D platforming game. The reason I chose to do this is I like to play a lot of video games so I decided to try and make one. I first looked for free tools for making a game for beginners where I found a web-based one called sploder which is what I decided on using. I then made levels for my game based on the gaming videos I watch by using ideas from the games being played and trying to input them into my game. I also had someone test out some of the game to get feedback on it and then made edits to the levels based on it. What I learned from this is if you plan making a complex game then you should not use any of the free tools since you are extremely limited in what you can do.
Bibliography:


Dooley, Jeremy, Matt Bragg, and Trevor Collins. "Speedrunners Gameplay - The Stream Team (Twitch Highlights)." YouTube. YouTube, 16 Aug. 2015. Web. 03 Feb. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4w2QRLenOg>. This video shows gameplay of a 2D game where the objective is to run an obstacle course and to eliminate the other players by making them fall behind and go off the screen using different types of tools and weapons. I chose this because one of the tools you have is a grappling hook to traverse different areas so I decided to have something similar in my game. I think this source is reliable since it shows enough of the gameplay to get a good understanding of what you need to do and how it works.


Heyman, Joel, and Adam Ellis. "How To: Happy Wheels." YouTube. YouTube, 31 Jan. 2016. Web. 05 Feb. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkHwvddJpcM>. This video shows gameplay of a 2D game where you play user created levels and have the option to create your own. I chose this because the website I am using to create my game looks like it has similar mechanics as this one but the ones I’m using seem to be a little downgraded but it still gave me some ideas.


Jones, Michael. "Rage Quit - Cat Mario." YouTube. YouTube, 30 May 2013. Web. 03 Feb. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BksFy5qbwwM&list=PLTur7oukosPGhIYDLakN7OXX1Wba5pMbG&index=73>. This video shows gameplay of a remade mario game with the same objective as normal mario except anything can happen like an invisible block appearing and random enemies coming out of nowhere and killing you. I chose this because I was going to have similar things happen in the game I am making but I couldn’t have the things do most of these so I am having my game do things that are close to the same ridiculousness.


Jones, Michael. "Rage Quit - Mega Man 10." YouTube. YouTube, 28 June 2012. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhdAqD890Og&list=PLTur7oukosPGhIYDLakN7OXX1Wba5pMbG&index=121>. This video shows gameplay of a classic 2D platformer shooter where you have to defeat enemies and get through the level to get to the boss and defeat him. I chose this because there is a power up in the game where you give the character a gun so I am going to make a level similar to this.


Jones, Michael. "Rage Quit - The Unfair Platformer." YouTube. YouTube, 20 June 2013. Web. 05 Feb. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW8KKU-GXio&index=70&list=PLTur7oukosPGhIYDLakN7OXX1Wba5pMbG>. This video shows gameplay of another platforming game where you have to make it through each level while looking out for hidden things like spikes coming out of the ground or the ground itself disappearing beneath you. I chose this because in the game creator I am using there is a block that breaks when you step on it so I could do something like this or at least similar to it.


Jones, Michael. "Rage Quit - Trials Evolution." YouTube. YouTube, 19 Apr. 2012. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzqtePR5_YE&list=PLTur7oukosPGhIYDLakN7OXX1Wba5pMbG&index=131>. This video shows gameplay of a platform racing game where you need to complete different tracks that each have different types of obstacles that you need to get through. I chose this because it gave an idea to make a driving level in my game where you have to make it through some things in a vehicle.


Jones, Michael. "Rage Quit - VVVVVV." YouTube. YouTube, 15 May 2014. Web. 05 Feb. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDFnsHO0QR4&list=PLTur7oukosPGhIYDLakN7OXX1Wba5pMbG&index=26>. This video shows gameplay of a 2D game where your ship malfunctions and you have to travel all around the ship and space to get to them. I chose this because there are parts in the game where you have to traverse through some spikes while falling which gave me some ideas of a level I could add into the game I am making. I think this source is reliable because it shows a good amount of gameplay of the game and


Lee, Joel. "5 Free Game Development Software Tools To Make Your Own Games." MakeUseOf. N.p., 10 Feb. 2010. Web. 21 Jan. 2016. <http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/five-free-game-development-tools-make-your-own-games/>. This article has a list of game developing tools for people to use to create their own games. I selected this article because I needed something to use in order to make my game for my capstone. It had the tools in order from beginners to experts which made choosing one easier since I don’t have any experience with this. I think this is a reliable source because it explains what each of the tools is good with and the difficulty level of each tool.


Roy. "Tutorial #3: Platformer Creator: Making A Game." YouTube. YouTube, 21 June 2013. Web. 05 Feb. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnvHqMg9Ew4>. This video is a tutorial of the platform creator and shows an example of a game that can be made using it. This video helped me get an idea of what you can do with this game creator and gave me some interesting ideas for a level I could make with this game creator. I think this is a reliable source since it seems like that this person has created multiple videos on this game creator and has a lot of experience with it.


Ryckert, Dan. "More Addictive Than Ever." Rev. of Trials Evolution. Game Informer 18 Apr. 2012: n. pag. Game Informer. Web. 4 Feb. 2016. <http://www.gameinformer.com/games/trials_evolution/b/xbox360/archive/2012/04/18/review.aspx>. This article is a review on a platform racing game. This article tells about the previous game in the series and explains how this one is an improvement to it with the additions and new game mechanics. I chose this because this article shows what made this game an improvement from the previous one which I plan on having something similar.


Jacklyn Middleswarth's Capstone

Abstract: My final project is a mural at the end of the second floor hallway. I chose this wall because it was a big enough wall and had a lot of potential. A lot of labor went into making sure the wall was ready for paint. I cleaned the wall, used joint compound to fill up the holes in the wall, and then sanded to make sure the wall was even. I then proceeded to measure out the dimensions of the LOVE portion of the mural so I could tape where I was supposed to paint. I then used a projector to help me trace the outlines of the white silhouettes. I then went over everything in color to finalize the mural. The idea of the mural was to create a sports themed mural because over the past four years, sports at SLA have taken up the most amount of my time. And my original idea was to have the LOVE Philly sculpture in the center with SLA sports surrounding the sculpture. I was going to have a night sky as the background but due to time constraints, I didn't get to it. 

Abazoski, Miranda. Personal Interview. 04 February 2016.

In the interview with Miranda, being apart of a sport, especially in a sport like ultimate frisbee, the connections she makes is one of the most important things to have. When there are no connections on or off the field, it may feel like there is no point in playing. One word that specifically comes to mind when she thinks about SLA sports is: States. I will use the State’s idea in particular to portray the frisbee aspect about SLA. Some people define SLA by ultimate frisbee, everybody in the school knows it is an important sport to Mr. Lehmann, and almost every watches the ultimate kids workout in the morning. So to envelop what SLA sports are about, to include drawings around ultimate, and states is important.


Bell, Tamira. Personal Interview. 04 February 2016.

In the personal interview with Tamira, she brought up a new idea which was working hard towards something that she loved. It was touched on earlier by other students, although for the sport that Tamira does, which is student’s run, she said it was all about endurance. This is endurance is difficult and challenging to build, but by doing this, the endurance allows her to have it in other parts in her life. I will include hard work and practice as inspiration in my sketches. This idea helps to conclude what the life of SLA is, and how SLA sports helps you prepare for multiple aspects in life.


Denny, Shaion. Personal Interview. 03 February 2016.

Shaion talked about connection, and with connection especially in high school there’s more opportunity to talk to those who aren’t in the same grade. Making friendships on the team is what makes [basketball] fun for him. Shaion also talked about success, and overcoming a hardship, like beating a higher ranked team is a satisfying feeling, and one of the best feelings in a sport. The part where Shaion talks about SLA sports are just about having fun will be incorporated into the mural. The mural is going to be filled with positivity, and having fun in a sport is definitely a key for the mural’s portrayal of SLA sports in general.


Dymek, Malwina. Personal Interview. 02 February 2016.

In the interview, Malwina Dymek talks about to importance of being a team, and everyone helping each other to improve their skills and reach their highest potential. She continues to connect SLA’s core value collaboration to school. On a team, teammates constantly work together to win, and that mentality helps achieve collaboration in school projects. Malwina also states that the best thing about a sport isn’t the physical activity of it, it’s the cheering that goes on. This interview will be used as inspiration for sketches that will go into making the mural. Especially the main concepts of this interview which is collaboration, and the words she chose of when she thinks of SLA sports: family, support, positivity.


Fecher-Davis, Naomi. Personal Interview. 04 February 2016.

In the interview with Naomi Fecher-Davis says the first word she thinks of when thinking about SLA sports is camaraderie. Just like many others, friendship and trust is important to her when she is on a team. Naomi touched on the fact that SLA doesn’t hype up competition like other high schools, what SLA really tries to focus on is the bonding that goes on during games, and even off the field. One note she said that will definitely be used is when she says these bonds can last forever. This particular idea will be used as a main idea for a sketch, because a common trend through these interviews is bonding, and making those connections, while all has to do with collaboration.


Gerveni, Jorin. Personal Interview. 04 February 2016.

In the interview with Jorin, he talked about brotherhood. This relates to family, and he mentioned a cheer: “1, 2, 3, rockets, 4, 5, 6, family,” which is a common cheer among a lot of sports, especially the 1, 2, 3, rockets. Jorin also mentioned that pushing himself to do harder, and when his teammates cheer him on and pick him back on when he’s down allows him to have confidence. My idea is to use words spewing out from the main painting that describes SLA sports. I will use the cheer as a part of those words spewing out. Cheering is definitely an important part of being the the SLA sports community.


Hares, Rafi. Personal Interview. 03 February 2016.

In the interview with Rafi Hares, he talked about his realization of the different aspects of what goes into a team. He stated that he liked being apart of something bigger where his actions affected the whole team. He also in a way idolized the fact that there was a physical and innate talent to play a sport, but also a certain type of intelligence. He continued to talk about how SLA sports helped him gain connections. The answers that Rafi provided will be used, especially his answer about being apart of something bigger. So far the idea is to use the word intelligence when he would describe SLA sports as a possible word coming out of the mural.  


Hershey, Dillon. Personal Interview. 04 February 2016

In the interview with Dillon Hershey, she talked about the team a lot. How the importance of being on a team helps her focus in school. Her way of learning is through physical activity by using her hands and/or body. So when she gets to take part in a sport, this gets her energy out and she’s able to focus in school. Dillon said that when you’re apart of a team the best thing is the support system they provide. I will use Dillon’s words, especially the part about the support system as an idea for a sketch. This is particularly to include in the mural, because many people are talking about how sports provide friendships and support. When there’s a mistake, they are there to lift you back up, not drag you down.


McArdle, Thayeena. "Mural Techniques for Painting Wall Murals: Preparing, Painting and Sealing." Art Is Fun. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Feb. 2016. <http://www.art-is-fun.com/mural-techniques/#prepare>

This site contains a lot of information about a lot of different types of art. With murals specifically it talks about techniques for painting including prep work, starting and finishing, and how to paint the wall. Some steps included cleaning the wall and then priming it, using an art projector or grid projector, and then different ideas on how to apply to paint. The information on this website are credible, but I do not know if all the information on the website(if I were to apply it) would provide accurate step by steps. Although I am going to use the information on this website to guide how I am going to paint the mural, as well as what specific materials I need to get.


Williams, Bernard. "Techniques of Community Murals." Community Public Art Guide. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Feb. 2016. <http://www.cpag.net/guide/2/2_pages/2_1.htm>

This site contains a guide about how to prepare for a mural. It talks about the condition of the wall, and that it does not need to be a perfect wall but that some imperfections can be painted over with. Another topic the guide touched on indoor walls and how certain preparations can have certain advantages. It mentions asking for permission, and measuring the wall to scale a sketch. This information the site provides I will use because I have already asked permission, as well as having a plan to measure the wall. The site is pretty reliable, and is apart of the Chicago Public Art Group.

Pilar Carroll's Capstone

When I thought about what I wanted to do for my capstone, I wanted to impact a wide range of people, and I wanted to focus on something that has impacted me, and something that I find is important. I first decided to do a self awareness class, where girls can come in, talk about their experiences with harassment, and I could share ways that I avoid dangerous and scary situation, but I was worried because I do not have professional experience in self awareness. Fortunately when telling my uncle about my project, he put me in touch with a state trouper who specializes in coming to school, and teaching classes on self awareness. I talked to her multiple times, and we scheduled a day where she would come in and teach a class. 
When talking to the trouper, she made me realize how much learning how to physically defend your self is just as important as learning how to mentally defend yourself. My friend Noah already teaches a self defense class, professionally, so I decided to approach him before I looked for someone else to teach the class. Luckily Noah agreed to do a joint capstone with me, him focusing more on the self defense aspect, and me focusing on self awareness. 
After weeks of planning and advertising, we finally had our first class, the class with the state trouper. About fifteen students showed up to this event, and it was very productive. The students were very respectful and engaged, they asked a lot of questions and I could sense a real connection between the students and the state trooper. 
Unfortunately, the other classes did not thrive. At first few came in, but it ended up that no one would come. We would advertise, and make announcements over the loud speaker, but no one felt like they were in enough danger to continue to come to our classes. We had students that said, they would never be prayed upon, but even if they did, they would not get hurt because they have pepper spray. 
We were not sure what to do after that point, because we could not force people to come to the class, so we turned our capstone virtual. We decided that making an informative website could teach people who want to learn to defend themselves. We included tips of self awareness, videos of self defense moves, and a lot more.
I am Very happy with how our capstone has turned out, we put in a lot of hard work and I hope it effects the community. 

You can find our website here: http://selfarmy.weebly.com

Olivia Mack Capstone

For my Capstone, I originally wanted to produce a documentary about my involvement in the Philadelphia Suns, which is a basketball team in the Philadelphia Chinatown community. In the documentary I talked about our monthly tournaments, summer league and practices. I did end up doing this documentary but as long as getting a ton of footage I also took many pictures. I wanted to be able to share them so I thought about making a website with a page for a photo gallery as well as my documentary.

The process was pretty easy in the beginning because I had everything planned out and I knew since Junior year I wanted to do a documentary so I already had recorded some footage throughout the summer. However, further into Senior I had a lot of technology problems with getting the program to edit and problems that occurred within my laptop. There were also a couple of instances where my camera was on the muted option and I would have to recorded interviews.

I am very happy with how my final product came out. I enjoyed making the documentary and putting the website together. It had a lot of fun doing it and it was not one of those projects where you dread doing.

In the future, I hope to be more prepared with technical difficulties just because you can not always rely on technology. I learned a lot about my team that I actually did not already know. I hope that from watching this people take action to hopefully be more involved in the community and to join a similar organization. When I first joined the Suns, I was very skeptical but in the long run I am glad I tried something new.

The link to my website is here.
http://philadelphiasunscapstone.weebly.com/

Annotated Bibliography


Carr, Bella. "Ball Is Life." Personal interview. 26 Oct. 2015.

This interview source will help me a lot in getting a perspective from a young player. Bella plays with the New York Titans. She is the only girl player who plays for her team. I think that she will really be able to influence on how it feels to play on a team with all boys and being the only girl. Also, she is mixed. She could explain the rules of what the process of getting into this Asian league is like. She also talked a lot about her experience at her first nationals and not being able to play, because nationals did not allow coedd. I think that her interview could help me with getting a girl’s perspective in the league.


Chin, Rebecca. "Philadelphia Suns: Harry Leong's Suns Story." YouTube. YouTube, 10 Jan. 2012. Web. 05 Feb. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sh-hDZD5jY>.

This source is very useful because someone who was once on the Philadelphia Suns, who has moved to New York made this short film about the Suns. I know her personally and her experience will greatly help me with conducting my documentary. She also interviewed Harry Leong who is my coach and the president of the non-profit organization The Philadelphia Suns. I think that everything here for my documentary and the organization itself will be very credible. The information is coming straight from the person who created this organization and someone who has been in the league for a very long time.


Eng, Stanley. "Basketball Impact." Personal interview. 26 Oct. 2015.

The source is very useful for my project. I am using this personal interview in my project. Stanley Eng is now a coach and sometimes he helps around if needed in the Philadelphia Suns organization. In his interview he shared his experiences, as a player and how he transitioned to become a coach and started helping out in the Sun's community. I think this source will help me talk about the Philadelphia Suns organization as a whole and how it has evolved and changed over the year until today.


Lee, Ken. "Basketball." Personal interview. 26 Oct. 2015.

I think overall out of all the interviews that I have conducted this interview will really impact and help my documentary the most. Ken Lee is a coach of the New York Rockits, which is a basketball team that the Philadelphia Suns play the most. He has started the league with my Coach Harry Leong. In the interview he mentioned a lot about how he was as a player and how he loved basketball so much that he started to coach, and most importantly he coaches his two sons. He mentions a lot about the Asian basketball league and how it is very different. I think I will be able to incorporate a lot of what he says into my documentary, as well as putting the interview footage into my film.


Lowe, Lauren. "Home." Philadelphia Suns. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Feb. 2016. <http://phillysuns.org/>.

This is source is the Philadelphia Sun’s official website. It has everything you need to know about the organization. I think that it is pretty updated and it mentions a lot of events and past events that have occurred. It has many videos and pictures. I know that the majority of the contributors on this website are members of the Philadelphia Suns and they are very credible because they have been members of the Philadelphia Suns for a very long time. This source will help me a lot I think with the introduction most importantly of my documentary because they mention a lot about their mission and what they do and how the organization had gotten started.


"NACBA - Official Site of the North American Chinese Basketball Association." NACBA - Official Site of the North American Chinese Basketball Association. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Feb. 2016. <http://www.nacbait.com/myNACBA/login2?accesscheck=%2FmyNACBA%2Findex.php.>

This source is very useful because it tells you literally almost everything you need to know about the NACBA which is the North American Chinese Basketball Association. This is the league that my basketball team plays for as well as the other teams that we play throughout the year. This website will provide me with information that I need to conduct and ask questions to certain players and coaches that I interview. There are also pictures and short video clips that will help me really understand how the NACBA league is different from other basketball leagues in North America.


Seiter, Courtney. "6 Powerful Communication Tricks Of Great Interviewers."Buffer Social. Buffersocial, 07 Jan. 2014. Web. 05 Feb. 2016.

<https://blog.bufferapp.com/6-powerful-communication-tricks-from-some-of-the-worlds-best-interviewers>.

This website is very useful because it tells me tips and tricks to use while interviewing people. For my documentary I already do have some interview questions and some interviews that have already been conducted. However, I do want to make the person that I am interviewing comfortable and to not be awkward. I still need to conduct some interviews still and I want to be the interviewees comfortable to speak because I think that I could improve on that. This is be very beneficial towards my documentary because I do not want people that are watching to think that I did not prepare before interviewing.


"The Unexpected Beauty of Traveling Solo." The Unexpected Beauty of Traveling Solo. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Feb. 2016. <http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/short-film-showcase/the-unexpected-beauty-of-traveling-solo>.

This source is very useful because it is a very good example of a short documentary or a trailer. I think this will really help me when I have to present my trailer and short piece of the film. I think this will really help me with how much content and how much of my film I should reveal in my trailer. I think that also this will help me with what is good in a video or film. I will be able to see how  director or actor incorporate what was important for the film or what they should have taken out.


Paar, Morgan. "How to Make a Documentary: Part 1 Story Development."Videomaker.com. N.p., 1 May 2010. Web. 05 Feb. 2016. <http://www.videomaker.com/article/f16/14803-how-to-make-a-documentary-part-1-story-development.>

This source is very useful because it shows you how to make a documentary. It gives you guidelines to which how to process your documentary from the beginning to the end. This source is very easy to understand because it shows pictures and diagrams which visually helps the person who is trying to understand this source. This source will help me because it will show me how to make my documentary organized and in order. It tells you what in a documentary really engages the audience whether it is interviews or music etc. Overall  I think this source will be very useful in making my documentary.


White, Terry. "How To Get Started with Adobe Premiere Pro CC - 10 Things Beginners Want to Know How To Do." YouTube. YouTube, 11 May 2014. Web. 05 Feb. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK3JTh2jOf8>.

This source is useful because it will teach me everything I need to know to make my documentary on Adobe Premiere. I may need to know how use certain parts and tools that are apart of Adobe Premiere and this youtube video will definitely show me how to do those things. Tamira Bell knows the Premiere program really well. So if I also every needed her to go over some of these tool and what not I could as well as looking back into this source. This source will help me a lot because it will make my life better and project better as I learned how to use this program for editing.

Christian's Capstone

The youth of Philadelphia need activities to keep them off the streets. Children like playing sports su ch as basketball but many can not afford it. I wanted to offer a way for teens to compete without having to put out anything financially. Fees often stop people from having opportunities to do things they enjoy.

For my capstone, I wanted to have a basketball tournament. Basketball is something that is very important to me. I know it is something others care about too. I figured that if people had the opportunity to play in a gym against competition they would take it. It took help from my friends, but I had a good turn out.

My friends helped a lot. Each person told someone they knew and almost everyone signed up. I had more teams signed up, but some couldn't make it. 

https://docs.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/document/d/1qg5lJN1Mxwz0qigIgE2VYxTqDL8FU_nbvs6OOcPDM_U/edit?usp=sharing




Abuhena Hares Capstone

For my capstone I decided to work within my community. Specifically I contributed to the Bangladeshi-American community around me. I grew up watching my own community expand before my eyes. When I was a child there were very few Bangladeshi-American families around me but now there are hundreds. However, even though we grew in numbers we stagnated in social/political growth. Bangladeshi-Americans to this very day are still categorized as "asian" and this branding hurts us because we lose the characteristics which make us unique. This is the issue I chose to tackle with my capstone. My goal with this project was to help the Bangladeshi-American community become recognized as a respectable cultural, social and political group. 
To attain my goal for my capstone I researched several upcoming cultural events in my community. At this events I advocated for more political action urging more people to vote. I also showed people how to register to vote online as well as different ways to vote such as absentee voting. I was able to get many people to get interested in voting and as a result there were many people to register and vote. I knew that getting Bangladeshi-Americans to vote more would help the community get recognized by the city and politicians. I learned from this process that votes hold a lot of power, once my community organized as a voting force many politicians came to us to see how they could get our votes. Voting is powerful tool which helped my community grow. 

Digital Medium- https://docs.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/presentation/d/1cnstfmlz7lv6Xn3L0VOxCLFcYD-Gb3VhuUgToHMVEZU/edit?usp=sharing (link to presentation/website)

Annotated Bibliography:


"Why Young, Minority, and Low-Income Citizens Don't Vote." Name. Center for American Progress, n.d. Web. 04 Feb. 2016.


https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/news/2014/11/06/100627/why-young-minority-and-low-income-citizens-dont-vote/


This article talks about the groups of people in America who have been shown to have historically low turnout numbers. 34 percent of nonvoters are younger than 30. 70% of nonvoters are under the age of 50. From these statistics it can be determined that the vast majority of voters are relatively young. Furthermore 43% of all non voters are minorities (hispanic, african american, or other racial and ethnic minorities). 54% of all non voters have not completed college. 46% of all non-voters have an income of less than 30,000 dollars a year. All in all the demographic of nonvoters are minorities, have a low education, and have a low income. This accurately describes many of the Bangladeshi-americans who live in west Philadelphia.




Dye, Lee. "The Psychology of Voting." ABC News. ABC News Network, 6 Sept. 2015. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. <http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=119958&page=1>.


This article talks about the psychology behind people voting. Depending on how riveting an election is people will be more inclined to vote. If both candidates are people who are relatively without controversy than people are much less likely to vote. However if both are also equally terrible then people also will not vote. There needs to be a dynamic between good and evil candidates in order to get people interested in voting. For instance in the upcoming election Donald Trump is seen as the bad guy and Bernie Sanders is seen as the good guy. Because of this many people are invested in the upcoming election because they fear for the future of a country that is led by Donald J. Trump.



Giordano, Dom. "Those Who Don't Vote Shouldn't." Philly.com. Philly.com, n.d. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. <http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20151028_Those_who_don_t_vote_shouldn_t.html>.


The statistic of voter turnout in Philadelphia during the municipal elections of 2015 were astonishing. Very few people voted compared to the overall population of Philadelphia. 23% of people said that they didn’t vote because they were busy, 16% of voters said that they weren’t interested, 8% of people said that they disliked the candidates running. These numbers are astounding because it show just how out of loop our city is with its own government. To add insult to injury the city of Philadelphia offered a 10,000 dollar cash prize to the first four people who turned up to vote. Essentially this turns our given right to vote into a joke. No better than a cash prize on the television show wipeout. Elections are not taken nearly as seriously as they should be in this city.



Jaipaul. Directory of Ethnic Resources of Philadelphia and Delaware Valley. Philadelphia: Ethnic Heritage Affairs Institute, 1976. Print.


Since 1976 the population of Bangladeshi-Americans in Philadelphia has skyrocketed. In West Philadelphia alone there are around over a thousand Bangladeshi-americans. This strong demographic of Bangladeshi people exhibit great literature, folk art, religious tradition, and linguistic aptitude. In addition the Bangladeshi-american community of West Philadelphia has established many cultural and educational organizations designed to help integrate Bangladeshi-americans into American culture. Despite this strong Background however there are very few accounts of Bangladeshi-american involvement in the political aspect of the city of Philadelphia. In fact only recently have Bangladeshi-americans started communicating with their local government as a community. This was in order to expand as existing islamic mosque to accommodate a rapidly growing community. To that point the community had been rejected twice on their plans to expand the mosque because of poor communication and a lack of formal understanding of the inner workings of the municipal government of Philadelphia. This is where improvement in the bangladeshi-american community of Philadelphia needs to happen.



Eade, John. The Politics of Community: The Bangladeshi Community in East London. Aldershot, Hants, England: Avebury, 1989. Print.


There is no reliable statistical information regarding the Bangladeshi community in east london. Bangladeshi-Americans on the census are lapped in the category of “Other/Asian” when it comes to data involving them. This misrepresentation of Bangladeshi-Americans leads to devaluing of the community as they are not properly recognized. In West Philadelphia there is no proper account of how many Bangladeshi-Americans there are. I personally have experienced there to be over a thousand, however no census will tell you this. In the eyes of many we are placed in with other indian/pakistani people despite our distinct differences. In order to gain traction as an aspiring minority there needs to be movement which raises awareness on a little known community. This movement needs to be demonstrated politically.


Rahman, Shafiqur. The Bangladeshi Diaspora in the United States after 9/11: From Obscurity to High Visibility. El Paso: LFB Scholarly Pub., 2011. Print.


This book tackles the issues plaguing Bangladeshi-Americans after the attacks on the twin towers during the infamous event 9/11. One major issue surrounding the Bangladeshi-American community is their relative obscurity towards other Americans. “in the US, as I am often told, one’s assertion of Bangladesh origins is often greeted with a blank stare or the response of “Bangladesh, where’s that?” (Nazli Kibria). It doesn’t help at all that after 9/11 muslims became branded very poorly by both the people of America and the media alike. Post 9/11 being muslim expanded beyond being a follower of a religion, it became a distinction to describe those who have beards, olive colored skin, thick eyebrows, and wear robes. This branding of “muslim” on the Bangladeshi community has no doubt hindered it development as a growing minority. In addition to be branded as indo-pakistani the title of muslim is also bestowed to all Bangladeshi-americans. As more words are coined to describe Bangladeshi-americans they become less and less Bangladeshi-americans.



Clement, Scott. "Why Don’t Americans Vote? We’re “too Busy.”."Washington Post. The Washington Post, n.d. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/07/17/why-dont-americans-vote-were-too-busy/>.


According to U.S Elections Project 2014 yielded the lowest midterm voter turnout since 1942. 2014, unlike 1942, wasn’t a year where America was faced with the greatest threat to world peace ever. This leads to questions as to why voter turnout is so low. This article found a study from the United States Census bureau which found that 28% of eligible yet non voting americans chose being “busy” as their reason for not voting. We live in a country which describes voting as “a god given right” many of us don’t exert our right. To get more people the opportunity to vote there needs to be a stronger emphasis on other means of voting. To vote you don’t need to run to your nearest booth. There are many new ways to vote including mail in and absentee. Furthermore we can even vote early before election day even comes. The ability to vote with attending a booth needs to be more readily advertise as it would entice many more people vote leaving them without excuses such as “I’m busy.”





Lindell, Hattie. "TexElects." Moody College of Communication. Moody College of Communication The University of Texas at Austin, n.d. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. <http://moody.utexas.edu/strauss/texelects/importance-voting-hattie-lindell>.


Elections determine who are the people who will be running our country. This encompasses more than just the president and his cabinet members. This includes the smaller positions which make up municipal government. The 2008 US Census Bureau says that only 63% of all people registered to vote did, however only 72% of America is registered to vote. Basically only 45% of America is even voting in these elections. Only 45% of all Americans are even voting. 55% of America isn’t voting. This means that we are missing the input of an enormous demographic people when it comes to voting.




"Different Ways to Vote." Different Ways to Vote. Cornwall Council, 5 Oct. 2015. Web. 05 Feb. 2016. <https://www.cornwall.gov.uk/council-and-democracy/elections/different-ways-to-vote/>.


This article goes over the different ways to vote in case the standard way of voting via booth isn’t possible. Postal voting allows people to vote through the mail. To vote via mail in one needs to decide who they are going to vote for ahead of the election. First you must apply to vote online through your state’s website. Next you will have your postal voting form mailed to you. You then fill out the form and mail it back to your local polling place. All of this must be done at least 11 working days before the election. You also vote through proxy voting where you have someone else vote in your place.




Fennema, Meindert, and Jean Tillie. "Civic Community, Political Participation and Political Trust of Ethnic Groups." Multikulturelle Demokratien Im Vergleich (2001): 198-217. Research Gate. Simon Fraiser University. Web. 5 Feb. 2016. <https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Meindert_Fennema/publication/253377403_Civic_Community_Political_Participation_and_Political_Trust_of_Ethnic_Groups/links/54735e5e0cf2d67fc03732d1.pdf>.


This article details the political involvement of minorities in Amsterdam in Netherlands. This study found that the involvement of minorities in the municipal elections of Amsterdam was declining. In 1994 67% of the turkish community in Amsterdam participated in the municipal elections. In 1998 only 39% participated in the municipal elections. Despite this however the turkish population is shown to be the most active minority group involved in municipal elections. Because of this they are shown to have a significantly higher political trust compared to other minority groups in Amsterdam. Furthermore an increased political trust has shown that Turks are more properly represented by the city of Amsterdam.


Abdullah's Capstone

​My capstone was about using engineering skill stop fix the water fountain in SLA. This intrigued me because I want to be a future engineer. I started off very slow and picked it up. I worked with my mentor in helping me figure out how to diagnose problems. He always helped perfectly. With his guidance I learned about some plumbing. Also, I used a lot of my own mind to solve some problems. 
My strength in my capstone was that it was very eye opening for me. In a project of this sort you can never have a set timeline. I learned that you can fix multiple problems then have many news ones show up. This is very good for life. Now I can use this for myself in the future. 
Some struggles I had was that  some of the tools where hard and I had to go to outside sources such as google or Home Depot. There the people were very helpful. I fixed all the problems that I found but a new one has arose. In these next few weeks I plan on dressing this new problem. My capstone will succeed. 


https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ByaQ1w43ZBEtJay7s82hSHIcwB6clKVwaJ1jN65Yt90/edit

Jade Schweitzer: Capstone

In my Capstone I focused on the body modification community. I decided to take photos and interviews showcasing different people’s body art as well as the stories that accompany them. Throughout this project I had many hiccups and the project constantly changed and evolved based off multiple difficulties I had gathering information and media. In the end I compiled all the photos I got and all my interview pieces into a website as my final product that could be public to the world, and that I could continue to add to and even expand after the final deadline, or even further on down the line in my life. This topic is so special to me because my father is covered in tattoos and I’ve been in love with body modification since I was a little girl, and I was hoping to spread the word about how beautiful and interesting the art and people who wear it are.
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Sources​
"Are Tattoos Negatively Stereotyped in the United States?" Are Tattoos Negatively Stereotyped in the United States? Debate.org, n.d. Web. 04 Feb. 2016.

http://www.debate.org/opinions/are-tattoos-negatively-stereotyped-in-the-united-states

Armstrong, Adam. "Body Art Discrimination: Violation of First Amendment? - Ethics Alerts." Project Censored. Webmaster Adam Armstrong, 09 May 2014. Web. 04 Feb. 2016.

http://www.projectcensored.org/body-art-discrimination-violation-first-amendment/

"Ava Olsen, Piercing Interview." Jade Schweitzer. Personal interview. 8 Jan. 2016.

Although she has no tattoos Ava has a multitude of ear piercings, multiple per lobe and different cartilage piercings. Now she has no desire to get any tattoos at this moment in time, however she is highly appreciative of them, and in the futures plans to get even more piercings. Starting out with commonplace single lobe piercings, ever since getting her second lobe piercing has been hooked and in the market for more. Her right ear has a few more piercings than her left, and hopefully she will be filling that gap and then continuing to get even more after.

Brenoff, Ann. "Tattoos May Be The Next Great Generational Divide." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2016.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/19/tattoos-generational-divide_n_6445760.html

"Frankie Lopez, Tattoo/Piercing Interview." Jade Schweitzer. Personal interview. 7 Jan. 2016.

Zaria Linton’s boyfriend of almost four years, covered in tattoos, barely pierced, and actually a tattoo artist and model himself brings an interesting perspective to the table with his interview.

Coming from a conservative and religious family his parents were completely against tattooing and body modification which obviously caused and causes hiccups with his family life.

Goodway, Frankie. "Your Tattoo Doesn't Make You as Sexy as It Used to."Mirror. Mirror Online, 06 Nov. 2014. Web. 01 Feb. 2016.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/ampp3d/your-tattoo-doesnt-make-you-4578622

"Heaven Mendez, Septum Interview." Jade Schweitzer. Personal interview. 8 Jan. 2016.

Heaven’s interview was vital, given as she had to lie and then hide her piercing from her parents, communicating her devotion to the piercing itself, as well as her love for body modifications in general.

"Jackie Middlesworth Tattoo/Piercing Interview." Jade Schweitzer. Personal interview. 19 Dec. 2015.

"Joseff Filamore Tattoo Interview." Jade Schweitzer Personal interview. 19 Dec. 2015.

Joseff has three tattoos, all of which were done in the same day and the same session, while he has no piercings at all. His shoulder tattoo being a lookalike tribute to one his uncle wore with pride, while his other tattoos are a tribute to his father, who was a driving force in Joe’s life until he unfortunately passed away after chronic long term illness in early 2014. For his upcoming 18th birthday Joseff plans on getting a micro tattoo, themed around his life’s passion, skateboarding. So that no matter where he goes or what he is doing, whether his board is on him or not he always has a piece of what he has devoted his life to since he was twelve years old.

"Kristina Scalia-Jackson, Tattoo/Piercing Interview." Jade Schweitzer. Personal interview. 8 Jan. 2016.

Kristina’s interview revealed a lot about her tattooed and pierced history. All of her tattooes have seriously personal ties into her life and family, and being discriminated against, not because of her permanent tattoo choices, but her piercing decisions. Originally have multiple cartilage, lobe, and industrial piercings in each ear she was told to take them out during a summer employment, which actually resulted in a number of her piercings closing, she intends on getting them reopened, although has yet to have that done. Her tattooes are respectful, classic, catholic rooted tributes to her grandparents, meant to serve as a reminder of their memory and her love for them.

Little, Daniel. "Understanding Society." : Alienation and Anomie. Blogger, 20 Jan. 2008. Web. 01 Feb. 2016.

http://understandingsociety.blogspot.com/2008/01/alienation-and-anomie.html

"Marty Johnson, Tattoo/Piercing Interview." Jade Schweitzer. Personal interview. 19 Dec. 2015.

"Nagee Graves Tattoo Interview." Jade Schweitzer. Personal interview. 19 Dec. 2015.

Phillips, Betsy. "Unearthing The Secrets Of North America’s Tattooing Traditions." ThinkProgress RSS. Centre For American Progress Action Fund, 17 Mar. 2014. Web. 04 Feb. 2016.

http://thinkprogress.org/culture/2014/03/17/3410711/native-american-tattoos/

Quaranta, Alessia, Christian Napoli, Fabrizio Fasano, Claudio Montagna, Giuseppina Caggiano, and Maria T. Montagna. "BMC Public Health."Body Piercing and Tattoos: A Survey on Young Adults' Knowledge of the Risks and Practices in Body Art. BioMed Central Ltd, 7 Oct. 2011. Web. 04 Feb. 2016.

http://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2458-11-774

Rosen, Christine. "The Flesh Made Word." The Hedgehog Review. The Hedgehog Review, Summer 2015. Web. 04 Feb. 2016.

http://www.iasc-culture.org/THR/THR_article_2015_Summer_Rosen.php

Strohecker, Dave P. "Generational Change in the Social Acceptability of Tattoos - Cyborgology." Cyborgology Generational Change in the Social Acceptability of Tattoos Comments. The Society Pages, 19 Jan. 2012. Web. 04 Feb. 2016.

https://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2012/01/19/generational-change-in-the-social-acceptability-of-tattoos/

"Tattoos 1870 To Today: Evolution Of Ink | Tattoodo.com." Tattoodo. Tattoodo™ 2016, 17 July 2015. Web. 04 Feb. 2016.

http://blog.tattoodo.com/2015/07/tattoos-1870-today-evolution-ink/

"Tattoos-Sailor Jerry." Sailor Jerry. Sailor Jerry Spiced Rum, n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2016.

At first glance this may not seem like a viable source of information, but while looking over this website and doing research into the company, it became apparent that the founder of Sailor Jerry Spiced Rum, was also a tattoo artist, best known for his american traditional style pinup girls, still printed on his rum today. This information is helpful to this project by opening up the cultural history this company along with its founder has in the tattooing world, how society has grown from thinking that only veterans and alcoholics could have tattoos, and also giving a decent, yet brief history of some tattooing styles, like American Traditional.

http://sailorjerry.com/en/tattoos/

“The Market for Tattoo Removal." Astanza Laser. Astanza Laser LLC, 2016. Web. 12 Nov. 2015.

https://www.astanzalaser.com/treatments/laser-tattoo-removal/market/

Yellow, Buzzfeed. "People Try Highly-Visible Tattoos." YouTube. YouTube, 17 Oct. 2015. Web. 01 Feb. 2016.

Although this is a YouTube video and therefore much less credible at the onset, while watching this video you get a great first source opinion on a variety of topics. Some of which being, the opinions non-tattooed people had about tattoos and the people that have them, as well as how tattooed individuals are judged or perceived on a daily basis, also further throughout the video and the Buzzfeed experiment you see their opinions/perspectives change. The subjects grew to forget they had tattoos, or realize the incredible sense of community, respect, belonging, and self expression that comes with body modification, and even that their art spoke for them while they didn’t have to say anything. Watching how quickly their opinions changed, over just a week with temporary tattooes shows a full spectrum of ideas, thoughts, and even general misunderstandings of not only the mod. community, but also of the art itself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01Bd2AWdHCk

"Zaria Linton, Tattoo/Piercing Interview." Jade Schweitzer. Personal interview. 7 Jan. 2016.

This interview with Science Leadership Academy Alumni Zaria Linton was very enriching and in depth. She is not only covered in over twelve tattoos, some of which tattooed by her own boyfriend, Frankie Lopez (also interviewed), but also thoroughly pierced. Stemming from her initial body modifications starting in High school Zaria has been able to attain and keep steady well paying jobs, is in school, and is currently a model for an independent agency. She spoke in depth about the hangups she is having in her budding modeling career, as she is not fully complete in her tattooing yet, she would like to have a few of her tattoos touched up/fixed, and fill the gaps she has on her arms etc, while her manager is telling her to only get her corrections done and stop adding to her modifications, as the more she has the rougher a time she will have getting modeling offers as anything other than a tattoo model. Although Zaria aims to one day be a successful female tattoo model of color.



Leo Levy Capstone

Abstract:
One of the most influential books I’ve encountered is Herman Hesse’s 1922 classic Siddhartha. Siddhartha was first published in the U.S. in the 1950s, and became one of the defining texts of the countercultural movements of the 1960s. I first read this transformative text in the fall of my Junior year. As I followed Siddhartha’s travels on his quest for understanding, a fire of curiosity in me was sparked. The book initiated a period of introspection and contemplation that has not sputtered out yet.

Siddhartha is full of messages that would resonate with my generation, if they would just pick up the book and read it. It has also never been illustrated. Illustrations can augment the content of texts, creating new depth through the dialogue between the visual and the literary. They also have the power to make otherwise obscure texts more accessible. I decided to create a set of illustrations that would bring Siddhartha into the cultural conversation of the 21st century. 

I initially planned to create 12 panels in ink and watercolor. It became apparent that my lack of proficiency in watercolor would not suit this project’s level of complexity, and that creating 12 strong images would take much more time than I had. Instead, I created five panels drawn in ink, and colored digitally. I have also excerpted a series of salient quotes from the text to pair with my drawings. I plan to publish a pamphlet including this text and my illustrations before capstone presentations.

Links:
My capstone website, with all five illustrations and a collection of my sketches: http://leolevy5.wix.com/siddhartha